Among the Dead
by sociallyawkwardpenguin
Summary: Maura goes to a conference and meets the man of her dreams. It tears Jane apart, and she leaves to take a position in another city. After being severely injured in an accident, Jane comes back to Boston, and finds out things are not how she left them. Rizzles Fan Awards WINNER! - Best Plot and Best Author! Runner up- Best Angst/Drama!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This one is dark, you guys. There's not much fluff in this story, at least not at first. Bad things happen to both Jane and Maura. I've been writing this story for well over a month, it's already well over 100,000 words long, and I think I'm only about 80% done with it at this point. But I've been dying to get this chapter posted, and see if there's any interest in it. I usually try to post my chapters once every other day, but with this story, the chapters are all pretty long, and I'm probably going to update only once or twice a week.

This story breaks down Jane and brings her to rock bottom. It's sad, and there are moments that could be considered triggery to some people (though not in this chapter).

This isn't my usual fluff-fest, **but I am a firm Rizzles shipper**. **I've also never written a story that doesn't have a happy ending**. Keep that in mind as you read.

And if this story hits you in the feels, I'd love to hear about it in a review.

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He showed up in her life when I least expected it. She met him at a conference, and they hit it off immediately. He was quirky and awkward just like her, and they seemed to be able to sync their idiosyncrasies surprisingly well.

He was all she could talk about when she came back from that conference.

He was sweet and kind and generous, just like her. He was smart and shared so many of her interests and talents. He was good looking and surprisingly unpretentious for someone with his wealth and connections.

He was perfect for her, really.

He lived two hours away in Connecticut, and she started spending more and more weekends commuting to see him, or having him commute out to see her.

It didn't take long for all that commuting to start cutting into our time together. It took her longer than it should have to realize how much I was starting to miss her, but I continued to encourage her to see him. It killed me to do that, but she was so damn happy, and I could never deny her an opportunity for happiness.

I was saddened, but not surprised to hear that he had gotten a job at a hospital here in Boston several months later. He started meeting up with us at the Dirty Robber on Friday nights, and as hard as I tried not to like him, he was simply too much like Maura for me to hate him. Hating him would have been like hating Maura, and I definitely didn't hate Maura, even when I knew I had lost my opportunity to tell her how I felt about her.

Eventually he took my place next to Maura on Maura's bed, spending more than just the occasional night with her and getting to do all the things with her I had wanted to do.

I often think back to the night before she left for that conference, when things were simple and happy and I was too scared to tell her that I had feelings for her. I had been giving her a hard time about leaving, trying any excuse in the book to just get her to stay. It was hard enough not having her around for an entire week; it was even worse when Dr. Pike was called in to replace her.

That night was the last of the good times, really. We went to the Dirty Robber for dinner and drinks. We laughed with Korsak and Frost, and then I went back to her house where we fell asleep together on the couch watching movies.

The following morning I drove her to the airport, and I came so close to telling her that I loved her. Looking back at it, it would have been so easy, and maybe, just maybe, my life wouldn't have taken the turn that it has in the years since then. It was the first of two times in my life that my inaction would cost me dearly.

When she came back from that conference, everything changed. I did my best to be happy for her, and she did her best to stay the best friend she always was.

Inevitably though, I was replaced, and the hurt became more than I could handle.

He proposed to her over a beautiful candlelit dinner at an expensive French restaurant a little over a year and a half after they met. I'm pretty sure the diamond he gave her was worth more than her house and both of her cars combined.

I was the first person she told. She came by in the middle of the night, long after I'd used a six pack of beer to drown the loneliness and the hurt enough to fall asleep. Initially I mistook her late night arrival and her excitement as trauma, and thought her tears were a signal that she was hurt. I remember opening the door to my apartment and seeing her there, and immediately pulling her in for a tight hug.

She didn't hesitate to hug me back. It was the last time I ever hugged her like that.

After she broke the news of her engagement and I did my best to be happy, cheerful and encouraging, I couldn't bring myself to hug her again. Not like that. I couldn't touch her anymore. She wasn't mine to touch. She hadn't been for over a year. She never really had been to begin with, but before he showed up in her life we were both fooled into thinking that it was okay. It was perfectly acceptable for me to hug her. To touch her. To sleep curled up with her on her couch or in her bed.

No, after that hug I didn't touch her again. Not until that one last time, that time I can't think about anymore.

She asked me to be her maid of honor and initially I said yes. That's what best friends do, right? This was about to become the happiest time of her life and I certainly wasn't going to ruin it for her.

But the wedding planning and hearing about him all the time and their plans for their honeymoon and their plans for their whole lives together started getting to me.

For reasons I don't quite understand, they pushed for a quick wedding. They were engaged in February, for Valentine's Day, and they chose a May date to get married. They picked a venue and a justice of the peace. She chose the most gorgeous white wedding dress I had ever seen. I had to walk away from her after she put it on at her fitting, because all I could do was imagine her in that dress with me there in front of that justice of the peace. Her fiancé, her sweet, caring, quirky husband-to-be was still a faceless, nameless being up until that point, even though I had met him countless times before.

But when she tried on that dress and she stood there beaming in front of me, he became William Sheridan, and I realized that in a matter of weeks, Maura was no longer going to be Maura Isles. She was going to be Dr. Isles-Sheridan.

The idea of strong, independent Maura Isles taking anyone else's name, even in hyphenated form, was enough to make me physically ill. I had to excuse myself and quietly toss up the salad I'd had for lunch in the dress shop's bathroom.

Not long after the wedding dress fitting, one of my cases took me to New York. I dealt with a homicide detective and a lieutenant with the NYPD as we consulted on one another's cases. We were on the track of a serial killer, and our files combined gave us the break we needed in the case. The arrest took place in New York and I was invited out with their unit to go celebrate.

I went with them, and they were a nice bunch of people. I can't say much more about them, as I never really got to know them that well. I had locked myself up tightly by that point, too worn down by the loss of Maura to really let anyone else in. I was surprised when, at the end of the night, the lieutenant called me over and offered me a job. They needed someone with my skills right away, and they were willing to pay almost $20,000 more a year than what I was making in Boston. They would even help out with moving arrangements and housing.

He didn't know it at the time, but that lieutenant was giving me the out I had been desperate for since William had shown up in Maura's life. I told him I would give the Boston PD two weeks' notice, and I would start on May first. I wouldn't allow myself to think of how I was betraying Korsak, Frost or Cavanaugh. I was barely giving two weeks' notice, and I was leaving them for New York, of all places.

I did allow myself to think of how I was betraying Maura. Maura's wedding was set for the Saturday following my arrival in New York, May sixth. I would not be there for it.

I drove home the next morning and started packing. I called my mother and my brothers over to my apartment, so I could break the news to them first.

Needless to say, they were unhappy with me.

My mother actually cried. She cried first because I was leaving, and then she cried when she realized what I was doing to Maura.

"You're her maid of honor, Jane! You can't pick up and leave a week before she gets married! What is wrong with you?"

"I have to go, Ma. I can't give this up. It's $20,000 more a year than I'm making now, and a bigger opportunity to move up the ranks."

"What do you mean? You would hurt Maura for $20,000? She's relying on you! You're her best friend! How could you do this to her?"

"I'm sure she'll understand." I lied. I knew she wouldn't understand. I knew that she was going to be irrevocably hurt by what I was doing. I knew she would probably never speak to me again, and her anger at me was going to be what got me through making this break. It would be the final nail in the coffin that contained our friendship-slash-whatever-it-had-been.

"Janie." Frankie said, more serious than I'd ever seen him before. "You gotta think about this. You can't do this to Maura. Just tell them that you can't start until after the wedding."

"I can't." I lied.

I watched my mother throw her hands in the air and sob, and Frankie got up and left in disgust. My mother and Tommy quickly followed him out.

Frankie didn't speak to me again for six months. It was the longest we ever went without speaking to one another, and I'm pretty sure that if what happened to me at that six month mark didn't happen, he still wouldn't be speaking to me, but that's a story for later.

The following morning I walked into BRIC and gave Cavanaugh my two weeks' notice. It was the first time in my years at the Boston Police Department that I'd ever seen the man rendered speechless.

He called Korsak and Frost into his office and made me stand there and tell them what I was doing and where I was going. I had prepared for that. I had prepared for their outrage and their anger and their hurt. I squared my shoulders and let it roll off my back. I ignored their questions about Maura's wedding. Instead, I told them I had to go down to the morgue and let Maura know I was leaving.

Maura was in her office, at her desk, still wearing a pair of black scrubs as she meticulously finished her notes on her latest autopsy.

Her face lit up when she saw me. I never came down to the morgue anymore. I hadn't in months. I just waited for her reports to come through, and most of the time they came via emails that I didn't bother to respond to unless I had a work-related question.

I could never understand why she never questioned how I pulled away in the months leading up to that moment. Maybe it was just expected. Or maybe she'd found a replacement for me and she never realized how far I'd pulled away. How I'd been slowly walking out of her life since the day she came back from that conference and couldn't stop talking about William.

That day though, as I hovered outside the door to her office, her face lit up. She was clearly thrilled to see me. It pained me to think that in a few seconds I was going to wipe that smile off her face with my news.

I told myself then, that moment would be the last time I would ever see that smile. I tried to memorize it.

I may have lied to my mother about my reasons for leaving, but I will not lie and say that I didn't go into this situation knowing what it would do to Maura.

I will not lie and say that part of me didn't fear hurting her, because she had hurt me, whether she knew it or not.

I will not lie and say that I have not regretted what I did that day every moment of every day since then.

None of that matters though. Not anymore.

"Hey," I said, quietly.

"Hi Jane!" Maura effused, jumping up from her seat to greet me. It really had been months since I'd been down there to visit her unannounced, and her surprise and her excitement at my visit was obvious.

"I have to talk to you." I said as I walked into her office and closed the door behind me softly.

And just like that, the smile fell from her lips, and when I left her a few minutes later, she was crying. I closed the door behind me and didn't look back.

The last two weeks I spent at the Boston Police Department were awkward and difficult. I stopped receiving new cases immediately after giving my notice and was relegated to tying up loose ends on my existing cases. I spent eight hours a day behind a desk doing paperwork. That meant I didn't have to go out to crime scenes and see Maura there, which was better for me.

I met with the district attorney and discussed a game plan for the cases I had that were still pending trial. I had already discussed the issue with my new lieutenant, and was told that upon receipt of a valid subpoena, the NYPD would allow me to travel back to Boston to testify at depositions and trials. This would keep the suspects' defense attorneys from arguing that the arresting detective was not there to testify. I wasn't looking forward to coming back and seeing Maura in the courthouse, but it was part of my job and it was something I was going to have to deal with. If I was lucky, I would be called to testify on days when she wasn't being called, and we would be able to avoid each other that way.

Korsak and Frost made it a point to give me dirty looks whenever they left the BRIC to pursue suspects, serve warrants, and make arrests. Neither of them had anything left to say to me. They'd stopped bringing me in coffee and donuts when they ran down to the cafe. Frost even went so far as to throw away the coffee I brought up for him one morning. After that, I stopped doing it. I'd broken up their little dream team, and was leaving them for New York of all places. I had added insult to injury, and I didn't care, and they showed me that they didn't care either.

I was one of the most decorated homicide detectives on the force, but at five o'clock on the Friday before I left for New York, I shut off my computer for the last time and walked out of BRIC as if I was unknown to anyone. There was no going away party. There was no last round of drinks at the Dirty Robber. There were no well wishes or requests to stay in touch. Frost, Korsak and Cavanaugh had made it a point to not be there when I was leaving. It was better that way anyway.

I walked my service weapon down to the basement storage area, across from the morgue, and turned it in to the officer on duty. I had left my badge on my desk. I no longer needed it, nor did I need the reminder of who I had been or what that place had meant to me.

I didn't look at the doors to the morgue as I headed back to the elevator and went back up to the lobby. I didn't look into the District One Cafe as I walked through the lobby and out the doors of the Boston Police Department for the last time.

I really thought that walking out of there that day would free me of the weight I had been carrying on my shoulders since the day Maura had come back from that conference, but instead it just got heavier. That weight has never really left, though I've gotten better at ignoring it.

The movers had been to my apartment during the day, removing the last of my belongings and starting the drive to New York a few hours ahead of me. I'd seen photos of the neat little apartment on the Upper West Side that would become my home. It was small and would be cluttered, but it wasn't Boston and that was all that mattered to me.

All that remained in the apartment was a suitcase with some essentials I would need when I got to New York, Jo Friday, and the baby tortoise that Maura had given me. I walked the suitcase and the tortoise down to the car, strapping the terrarium into the back seat with the seatbelt and putting the suitcase in the trunk. I walked back up and picked up Jo, took one last look around, and left, pausing only to lock the door behind me.

As I turned to walk down the hallway and out the front door one last time, I was surprised to see Maura standing there waiting.

"You were just going to leave and not say goodbye to anyone?" Maura asked. It was clear she had been crying. Her makeup was ruined, her eyes were bloodshot, and her hands were shaking. Even in that state she was more beautiful than anyone I ever knew.

"We already said goodbye." I said quietly.

"No, we didn't Jane. Two weeks ago you came down to the morgue, told me you were leaving, and that you couldn't be in my wedding. Then you walked out. I don't think you ever said the word goodbye."

"Well then, goodbye, Maura." I kept my tone quiet, left the iciness that I was feeling in my heart out of my voice.

I tried to walk away, but she put her hand out and stopped me. She actually whimpered when jerked my arm away from her touch.

"What happened to us, Jane?"

I shrugged. Jo Friday started to squirm in my arms, so I let her down. She ran right up to Maura, tail wagging. She'd missed Maura too.

Maura seemed to be waiting for an answer, but I didn't really have one to give her. Not one she would want to hear, anyway.

"Why are you leaving?" She asked instead.

"I got offered a job."

"You already had a job."

"They offered me more money."

"They offered you more money to leave your family and work in a city you despise. Why are you leaving, Jane?"

I sighed, looked at her and the hurt written all over her face. I didn't know how to answer her, so I leaned forward and kissed her. I put every ounce of the love I'd felt for her for so long into that kiss. She didn't react at all. She just stood there, eyes wide open, hands shaking, so I let her go and whispered "I'm leaving because I can't be trusted not to jump up and object when the justice of the peace asks if anyone has just cause for why you and William shouldn't be married."

I stepped away from her and picked up Jo Friday. "I wish you nothing but happiness, Maura Isles."

And then I walked out. I walked down the stairs and out the door and put Jo Friday in the car, then got in and drove away.

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**A/N: **More soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** I cannot get over the reception this story has gotten. I've never posted a single chapter and gotten the response I did. I'm amazed. I'm grateful. I'm overwhelmed. I'm scared of disappointing people. Mostly, I just want to say thank you to everyone who left a review, followed the story, favorited the story, or followed me. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope I can keep up the work that you seemed to enjoy in that first chapter.

Just to clear something up quickly- this is a slow burn to Rizzles. This story takes away the two most important things in Jane's life and breaks her down. It's sad. It's full of heartbreak. But eventually (around chapter 10), things start looking up. Jane starts to bounce back. There *is* a light at the end of the tunnel. Don't say I didn't warn you though. ;)

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I didn't stop. I drove nearly seven hours through Boston traffic, and Connecticut traffic, and the ever-present New York traffic until I got to my new apartment in Manhattan. The movers would be by in the morning with my things, so I unfurled a sleeping bag and curled up with Jo on the floor. It was the most uncomfortable night I'd ever spent until that point, and it wasn't because I was trying to sleep on a hardwood floor.

My first week of work with the NYPD went pretty much the way I expected it to. As the outsider from Boston, I wasn't really feeling any love. Especially since I'd apparently been chosen over more than thirty-two candidates for the position, and I hadn't even interviewed for it.

They would hate to hear this, but I found out in that week that New Yorkers and Bostonians aren't all that different from each other. We're both fiercely loyal to our families and our hometowns. We love our respective sports teams and anything local. By the end of that first week, the ice had started to thaw. I had no intention of getting close to any of the detectives in that unit, but I did want them to trust me. Our lives depended on one another.

The Saturday of Maura's wedding I went out to a bar with five or six of the guys from my unit. I was the only woman in the unit and some of the guys had started to circle like sharks. Some of them wanted to get into my pants. Some of them wanted to give me a hard time about being a woman in a man's world. And some of them just wanted to get to know me. By that point I hadn't gotten to know any of them that well, but I was already starting to weed out who wanted to do what. I chose to go to the bar that night with the ones that wanted to get into my pants.

They were fools, all of them, but it felt good to string them along. It also felt good to get ridiculously drunk. By my fifth shot of whisky, I could no longer remember that it was Maura's wedding day.

It was the bartender that cut me off. It was one of the detectives I was there with that convinced him that another one or two shots wouldn't hurt me as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and gave me a lecherous grin.

By my seventh shot, I could no longer remember my way back to my apartment, and the detective that had convinced the bartender to give me two more shots was ready to make his move. I was drunker than I had been in years, but I still had the clarity to know it was time to get out of there. I asked the bartender to call me a cab, and he was more than happy to do so. I gave the address to the taxi driver and hoped he'd be honest enough to get me there. He was. I rewarded the cabbie with a large tip and by not vomiting all over his back seat.

I staggered up to my apartment and passed out on the mattress on my living room floor, too drunk to realize I'd slept on this mattress in my living room with Maura next to me once before, a lifetime ago and another world away. Whether she realized it or not, Maura was always with me. She never left my thoughts, and I carried the lost friendship and opportunities with me like a brick chained around my neck.

I also got ridiculously drunk on Maura's birthday in August and the anniversary of the date she met William in September, too. Except I didn't need the detectives from my unit to take me out. I was perfectly content to sit at home and get drunk by myself at that point. They'd stopped asking anyway.

By the time the first subpoena for me to testify came through to the NYPD from Boston, it had been six months since I'd left. Frankie, Frost and Korsak hadn't spoken to me at all. My mother called occasionally to check on me, but her calls were short and clipped. She too was mad at me, ashamed of what I'd done to Maura. I missed her sometimes, but most of the time I was glad she was no longer prying into my life. She wouldn't like who I had become. Tommy occasionally sent me texts with photos of TJ in them, and they were the only things that kept me connected to Boston. TJ was growing in leaps and bounds, and I was missing it.

No one ever mentioned Maura. Maura never called, and I didn't call Maura. That was good. Because by that point I had solidified my existence as the miserable, lonely, misplaced detective from Boston. I had numbed myself to all things Maura-related. I was surprised it had only taken me six months, but I did have all the time leading up to her engagement and wedding to get me there too.

My deposition was to take place on November eleventh. If all went according to plan, the trial would start several weeks later and I'd have to return to testify again in the courtroom. The weather was supposed to be awful the entire week of the deposition, so I bought a ticket on Amtrak and decided to take the train back to Boston instead of driving.

I didn't tell my mother I was coming. I didn't plan on seeing anyone. My goal was to get into Boston, be deposed, then get back to New York the next day. No one had to know I was coming. No one would want to see me anyway. Besides, the less time I spent in Boston, the less tempted I would be to find Maura and see how married life was going for her.

Because I wanted to make my visit to Boston as brief as possible, I opted to take a later train out of New York than I had originally planned. I paid a fee at the train station and changed my ticket to a train that left an hour later than I originally planned to leave.

I was deep underground in New York's Penn Station. I had no idea how bad the weather had become outside. I had no idea that my train would be one of the last ones to depart before New York shut down their public transit systems, and Amtrak would follow suit.

I had been asked by an Amtrak employee if I wanted to take the earlier train, even after I'd changed my ticket. "Your train might not leave. The snow here is bad, but the further north you go, the worse it's getting."

I decided to just wait it out. If I couldn't get out that day, I'd get out the next day. Or the day after that. I was going to a deposition; they were rescheduled all the time.

I had no idea that for the second time in just under two years, my life was about to irrevocably change for the worse because I decided not to act.

We were delayed by more than an hour, and I sat in the train car reading the news on my phone. A pre-winter blizzard of historic proportions was bearing down on the northeast. I was glad I wasn't driving. I was glad I had a hotel reservation.

I should have just gotten off of the damn train and rescheduled the whole thing, but I really didn't care. I just sat there and waited.

We eventually left, and it was slow going at first. The further we got from New York, the slower we moved. Until suddenly we weren't crawling anymore. We were flying. We were just outside of Hartford, Connecticut when the train started moving faster. I'd taken Amtrak trains before, and this wasn't a high speed express train, but all of a sudden we were moving as if it was one. I was curious as to why we were suddenly flying along, especially with the weather creating hassles for us.

We took a curve, and the next thing I knew, my phone had fallen out of my hand, under the seat in front of me simply from the train's momentum. I bent over to pick it up, and when I discovered it was too far away, I got out of the seat and kneeled down to reach for it.

That saved my life. I'm just not sure it was a life worth saving. Not at that point, and not now, not after what I've become. This isn't a life worth living.

As I reached for the phone, there was a sudden screeching noise followed by a giant bang. I remember lurching forward, slamming my head into the leg of the seat in front of me. I had been bent over, on my knees, rear end in the air, reaching under the seat for my phone, and the crash caused me to become wedged under the seat that I had been reaching under. As the car I was riding in derailed and began to fold in on itself, I found myself stretched out, prostrate under the seat I had been reaching under, jutting out between the legs of the passenger that had been seated there. If we weren't on the cusp of one of the nation's worst transportation disasters, it would have looked comical.

The event itself took only seconds to unfold, but it felt like it happened in slow motion. I watched as the train car began to crumple. I heard passengers screaming. I watched luggage and other belongings tumble down from the racks above the seats. I smelled diesel fuel and smoke and blood. And as I tried to grab hold onto something- anything- to stop my forward motion, I watched in horror as whatever it was that we hit started to push the row of seats across from me directly toward me.

After that, I don't remember things completely. When I woke up briefly, I was pinned under a lot of metal and bitterly cold. My hands were trapped under a sheet of metal, and they hurt when I tried to pull them out. My torso was also trapped, and everything from my navel down burned in agony. I was confused. I had years of police training, but nothing to guide me out of this situation. I slowly tried to extricate myself from under the seat where I was, but it was dark and I couldn't move. I felt something dripping onto my shoulder, and wondered idly if it was from the snow now making its way into the fractured train car, or if it was some sort of bodily fluid from the passenger who had been seated in front of me that I was now trapped under. I couldn't turn my head, but I rotated my eyes as far up as I could see, and from what I could tell, it would have been impossible for that passenger to have survived.

It dawned on me how eerily quiet it was. There were no screams for help. There were no screams in agony, not even from me. There were no sounds of human movement. No voices of rescuers coming to find us. There was the sound of flames burning not far away and of metal groaning as it settled. There was no human noise though, so I tried to make some. And when I tried to scream, the pain in my head and lungs was so intense that I passed out again. Later, the top part of the train car would collapse on top of me, essentially burying me alive.

It was the nation's worst train disaster in over fifty years. Apparently the snow had covered a signal, and the conductor on our train misread it, thinking he'd been given the go ahead to increase speed and try to make up for lost time and beat out the storm.

The signal actually was telling the conductor to stop. Another train was heading toward us on the same track, using it to get around a snow drift. If we had stopped, the other train would have returned to its track a quarter mile from us, and we would have continued on our way without incident.

Instead we went hurtling right for the other train at full speed, and over three hundred people perished in the crash and subsequent derailment.

There was serious confusion after the crash. The weather hampered rescue efforts, and Amtrak was criticized for allowing their trains to continue to run during the blizzard and for not keeping a better passenger manifest. Since passengers had been encouraged to take the earlier train when the weather started to turn, people who were supposed to be on the train that crashed weren't on it. They were the lucky ones. People who had been scheduled to take a train even later than the one I was on had been encouraged to take my train. Most of them met with a terrible fate. There were far more fatalities than there were survivors of this incident.

Everything from this point forward was told to me anecdotally. I've seen my medical records and can confirm the injuries were not exaggerated, but I don't know about my rescue. I wasn't awake for it, and even if I had been the trauma was so severe that I likely would not have remembered it.

My rescue was delayed by the fact that I had changed my ticket, and was originally supposed to be on the train that left an hour before the one I was on. At first no one was even looking for me. No one but the Boston District Attorney's Office knew I was heading to Boston. I hadn't told anyone else I was coming. Add to that the fact that I was unconscious, pinned under a row of seats, surrounded by the outside of the train car that had been pushed in around me, and I was nearly impossible to find.

It was almost a full twenty-four hours later, when I didn't show up for my deposition and the train crash had made international news, that someone from the DA's office sounded the alarm. When no one could locate me initially at any of the hospitals that had received survivors, and my cell phone's signal was traced to the accident scene, I was added to the list of passengers "presumed dead".

My mother was at Maura's house, making dinner for the two of them, when the news of the train derailment broke into regularly scheduled programming. They stopped to watch the news and remarked about the tragedy of it all. Neither of them was aware that I was a part of that tragedy. It wasn't until the next day, while Maura was down in the morgue performing a routine autopsy and listening to the news on her laptop that she first heard that I had been involved.

_"Sources are now telling us that former Boston detective and hero, Jane Rizzoli, was on the northbound train. She was returning to Boston to testify on a case she had solved while working with the BPD. Her contacts at the Boston District Attorney's Office have not heard from her since before the crash, and none of the hospitals treating patients have admitted her. At this time officials are indicating that Detective Jane Rizzoli is considered among the dead."_

I actually wasn't dead. I was deep in a coma at that point. The frigid temperatures were helping to keep my brain from swelling and killing me, but hypothermia had set in, and time was working against me.

By the time I was found, the mission had changed from search and rescue to a recovery mission. I was found by a cadaver dog that had sniffed out the passenger I was trapped under, and was nearly put into a body bag when someone heard me gasp for breath.

Even when I shot myself to save Frankie and Maura, I didn't come this close to dying.

I was airlifted to a hospital in Hartford where I was put on life support and kept in a medically induced coma to give my brain the rest it needed to stop swelling. When I was stable enough, the surgeries started. I had two broken legs, two broken ankles, and a severely crushed pelvis. My right hip was so severely crushed that they had to give me a new one. My last lumbar vertebra was fractured, but not crushed. It's what made the difference between me being a paraplegic and just severely injured. I had massive internal injuries and wound up having an emergency hysterectomy to control the bleeding caused by my pelvic fractures. My bowel was perforated and caused a serious infection. I had a head injury that required them to cut a hole in my skull when my brain started to swell. If it hadn't been for the freezing temperatures I was in, my brain would have swollen before my rescue and I would have died. No one knew whether or not I'd have brain damage when I woke up. If I woke up.

My hands had been pinned in by the wall that got pushed into me as I reached down to get my phone. They too were broken, but they were the least severe of my injuries.

Weeks later, when all of the surgeries were finally complete, I had more hardware in the lower half of my body than the bionic man. Rods, pins, plates and screws. The portion of my skull that they had removed to allow my brain room to swell up was sewn into my belly so that they could retrieve it later and use it to close up the hole in my head. I would later have surgery to remove it, when doctors would decide a metal plate was better for repairing my skull.

I was lucky to have survived, but the road to recovery was going to be a long one, and there were no guarantees that I would recover. I spent almost two months in a medically induced coma, while doctors urged my body to heal. No one knew if I would ever regain consciousness on my own, and if I did, what would be left of the Jane Rizzoli they knew.

It wasn't Maura that alerted my mother to the fact that I had been on that train. It also wasn't the authorities. It was Susie Chang. She came running into the autopsy suite when she heard the tray full of instruments crash onto the floor. Maura had fainted at the news, knocking the tray over and taking it down to the floor with her. Susie found her and roused her, and Maura told Susie that she had to go get Ma in the cafe and let her know I was on that train. After getting Maura up and onto the couch in her office, Susie ran upstairs to find my mother and broke the news.

Frankie got called off of his shift to come and take her and Maura home.

It wasn't until a full forty-eight hours after the crash that someone from the Hartford Police Department was able to contact my mother and let her know that I was in a critical care unit at a trauma center in Hartford, Connecticut. She spent nearly a day thinking I was dead. They all did.

For the first time since I had left them all behind in Boston, they all thought of me with something other than anger.

A cadre of volunteers from the Massachusetts State Police gave my brother's cruiser an escort to the state line, and the Connecticut State Police met them at the state line and continued the escort to the hospital in Hartford. Frankie drove for hours with my mother, Tommy and Maura in the car. They were silent the entire time, together but each alone with their worry. My mother later remarked to me how touching it was that fellow police officers volunteered to escort them into Hartford. It was a little thing that got magnified under the circumstances and turned into something big and touching.

My mother never questioned why Maura would want to come. She just insisted on coming with them. When I woke up and was coherent, I didn't believe it at first. By then Maura had returned to Boston, but she tried to come back to see me a few weeks later when I was moved into rehab.

There were other little things that happened while I was in a coma that turned out to be really big things. I had boarded Jo Friday at a vet's office near my apartment before I left for what was originally going to be a two day trip. Vince Korsak, upon hearing the news, tracked down that vet through one of my neighbors and drove all the way into Manhattan to get her. And the vet, upon hearing the news of what happened to me, refused to take payment for boarding her. Korsak then drove over to my apartment building, showed the super his badge, and convinced him to let him into my apartment to get my tortoise. He then turned around and drove all the way back to Boston. The man had been devastated by my abrupt departure, and he hadn't spoken to me in six months, but he still cared enough to drive from Boston to Manhattan and back to bring my pets home with him. Unfortunately, it took several days after my awakening for me to find out that my pets were safe with Korsak, but in hindsight everyone had more important things to worry about.

Maura had to return to work once she knew I was stable, but she hired an attorney to represent me. She paid for his services out of pocket, and as one of the best personal injury attorneys in the country, his services didn't come cheaply. By the time I woke up, he had filed a lawsuit against Amtrak, the estate of the conductor of the train I was on, the estate of the conductor of the train we struck, the railroad that owned the tracks we were on, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the Boston District Attorney's Office.

The NYPD was paying my medical bills out of an injured officer's fund, similar to workers compensation. Even though I had been summoned by the BPD to go testify, the NYPD had approved my travel as work-related and therefore the NYPD's compensation fund picked up my medical bills.

I understood the lawsuit against Amtrak and the conductors for their negligence and the difficulty in putting together a rescue, and the Port Authority for allowing trains to run out of Penn Station during the storm. I understood the suit against the railroad that owned the tracks we were on for failure to properly maintain the track signals. Initially though, I was confused by the suit against the Boston District Attorney's office. It wasn't until later on that I found out someone from their office had taken a payment under the table and leaked the news of my alleged death to the media. My mother had heard about it not through official channels but through the news via Susie Chang. Then I understood that lawsuit.

No lawsuit was going to heal me though, and I had a long, long road to recovery ahead of me.

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**A/N:** More soon. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Thank you again to all of you that have been reviewing and following this story. I'm overwhelmed by the reaction it's been getting, and I'm going to do my best to make sure I don't disappoint. I am extremely grateful to all of you for reading this, and this is just the beginning.

We're going to get into Jane's injuries and medical treatments starting with this chapter. Although I did research this, it may not be an accurate representation of injuries, treatment and recovery. I'm putting that disclaimer in here now, before someone in the medical field flames me and tells me it doesn't work that way. For the purposes of this _fictional story_ yes, it does work that way.

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Nearly two months after the accident I finally opened my eyes. I was alone in what's called a fracture bed, and I couldn't move. It wasn't the first time I had woken up with a tube down my throat breathing for me, but it didn't make things any easier. I tried to look around, but my vision was severely out of focus and my neck was in some kind of a brace. I tried to keep calm, but my increased heart rate set off an alarm on my life support system, and in less than a minute I had several nurses looking down at me.

"Just stay calm, Jane. You're in a hospital. You're safe."

I could hear the nurse, and I could understand what she was saying, but I had no way to respond to her.

Soon there was a doctor examining me, asking me to blink, look up, look down, look from side to side, follow the light from his penlight with my eyes, and so on. The doctor and all the nurses seemed to be really impressed that I could follow those simple directions.

I wanted to tell them that I was in excruciating pain, but I couldn't because the tube was down my throat. They must have realized it though, because before long a morphine pump had been set up, and I was drifting back to sleep before anyone could tell me what hospital I was in, or where my family was.

I woke up the next morning to see my mother smiling down at me. She looked terrible. I had no idea how long I had been gone, but I don't think my mother slept the entire time. She was haggard and so much thinner than when I had seen her six months earlier. Her hair had grown and there were grey strands showing at the roots. The circles under her eyes gave her a sunken, almost sickly look. She gently put her hand against my cheek and started talking to me.

"Janie, I'm so glad you're awake. Can you hear me? Do you understand me? Maybe you can blink twice if you understand me."

I blinked twice, and she started to cry.

"They said they didn't know how you were going to be, when you woke up. They thought maybe..." she trailed off, wiping her eyes. "I called your brothers to tell them you woke up. They're going to come and see you this weekend. Today's Wednesday, by the way."

I blinked twice again to let her know I understood her.

"You were hurt in a train accident. Do you remember that?"

I didn't really have a way to tell her no, that at that time I didn't remember it. I didn't blink, and she seemed to understand that.

"The Boston District Attorney said you were on your way to Boston for a deposition. I'm not even going to get into the fact that you weren't going to tell me you were coming. I'm too happy that you're awake."

I blinked twice to tell her I understood.

"You're in a hospital in Hartford. Once the doctors give us the okay, we're going to move you back to Boston. You'll go through rehab there."

Rehab? What kind of rehab did I need? It was then that I started taking stock of my body. I couldn't move, but I didn't know if that was because I was mounted to the bed and strung up by wires and slings and things with pulleys, or if it was because I had lost the use of my limbs.

Everything hurt though. I mean _everything_. I took that as a good sign. If I could feel it, maybe that would mean that I could still use it.

It suddenly dawned on me that I had left Jo Friday to board at the vet, and my tortoise was locked in my apartment with no one to feed it. I started to panic. I desperately needed to tell my mother that someone had to go get them. What if the vet gave Jo Friday to a shelter, thinking I had abandoned her there? What if the tortoise starved to death?

"Easy, easy Janie. What's the matter?" My mother asked stupidly, not realizing I couldn't tell her.

I started gagging on the breathing tube, trying to use the muscles in my throat to get it out. I had to tell her about Jo and the tortoise. It never occurred to me that I had been in a coma for as long as I had been, or that there were other things I had to worry about.

The critical care nurse assigned to me came running in and sedated me, to keep me from dislodging my breathing tube. Hours later, when I woke up again, my mother was gone. The nurse checked on me and explained that my mother had been staying at a local hotel and had gone home for the night. She would be back in the morning.

I was so worried about my pets that I was awake for a long time. Eventually though, the painkillers dragged me back under and I slept.

The next morning I tried to think of a way to tell my mother about my pets. I didn't really have to though. She came in with a bunch of papers in her hands, and sat down in the chair next to the bed.

"I have some emails I wanted to share with you; I thought they might cheer you up a little. I printed them out at the hotel. The staff there is so nice; they even let me use their color printer so you could see the photos, when I explained to them that you woke up." She said.

How long had I been out that my mother was staying in a hotel, and the staff knew my story? I wished she would tell me. I wished I had a way to ask her.

"This one is from your brother Tommy. He attached some pictures of TJ from his third birthday party." My mother held the page out for me to see, and it dawned on me then that if TJ had celebrated his third birthday, we were well into January at this point. The deposition I had been scheduled to attend was in November. That was two months.

Two months of my life were missing.

_Gone._

Like they never even happened.

My mother watched my eyes widen. I know she understood. "You were in a coma, Janie. The accident was November tenth. Today is January ninth. You-" she stopped, tearing up. She took a moment to calm herself.

"You missed Thanksgiving and Christmas and the new year." She wiped the tear that was falling down her cheek. "Your brothers, they come down whenever they can. It's easier for Tommy because he works Monday through Friday. Frankie comes down whenever he can arrange his shifts to have a few days off in a row. Maura-" she stopped and looked at me, and I begged her with my eyes to tell me. It had been so long since anyone even mentioned her. I missed her. I thought about her all the time, when I wasn't in a coma.

"Maura came in the beginning, made sure you were being cared for properly. She got you a lawyer, because you needed someone to handle your affairs while you were incapacitated. When they said you were stable, she had to go back to work."

I blinked, letting her know I understood.

Maura had been there. I wanted to ask my mother about Maura and her husband and how they were doing together, and what they had been up to and what it was like for my mother to live in their guesthouse, but I couldn't ask and my mother shuffled the papers in her hands. Just as quickly as she had come up, Maura was no longer the subject of our one-sided conversation.

"Vince sent these pictures of Jo Friday and your tortoise. He wanted you to know he is taking good care of them. He actually drove from Boston to Manhattan to get them. He's a good man."

If the breathing tube would have let me, I would have exhaled in relief. Korsak had my pets, and they were doing well.

My mother read me the email.

_Dear Janie,_

_Sending you best wishes for a speedy recovery. Jo Friday misses you, but I'm taking good care of her. The tortoise is ambivalent, as usual. They've got a home here until you're ready to come and get them._

_Sincerely,_

_Vince Korsak_

My mother held the email out for me to see again, and I looked at the picture of my dog, well-fed and happy looking. The tortoise did look like its usual ambivalent self.

I realized the email was rather short and lacked any real feeling. Korsak had done a wonderful thing by going to get my two pets, but he was still clearly angry with me. At least he had been willing to put his anger behind him to help out.

"I'll tell him you say thank you," My mother said, reading my thoughts. I blinked in acknowledgement.

My mother was quiet for a little while. There were no more emails, and I couldn't ask her all the questions I was dying to ask her. When I finally caught her eye again, I made it a point to look down at my body.

"What is it, Jane?"

I looked down at my body again. I really needed to know what had happened to me, and whether I was ever going to get off this breathing tube and out of this bed.

"I think the doctor will be in later to tell you about your injuries." My mother said, and that's when I knew they were bad. When my mother isn't willing to talk about something, it's usually because she can't bear to talk about it.

I couldn't bear to think of what could be wrong with me. I almost didn't want to know.

I must have fallen asleep at some point. When I woke up again, my mother was there, along with the critical care nurse assigned to my bed and a doctor I hadn't seen before.

The doctor examined me briefly.

"Jane, your mother tells me you've been blinking at her twice to acknowledge her in the affirmative when she asks you a question."

I blinked at him twice.

"That's good. We're going to run some tests and see about removing that breathing tube, at least for a few hours a day. Since you've been on it for so long, you're going to need respiratory therapy to wean off of it."

I blinked at him twice.

"I'd like to talk to you about your injuries."

I waited.

"Your mother already told you that you were in a coma for two months."

I blinked twice. It was still so hard to believe.

"When you were rescued, you were pinned under a seat. Ultimately we think that is actually what saved you. The people sitting in front of you were not as lucky."

I waited. I wanted to remark about how sad it was that I had survived when others hadn't, but I couldn't.

"Your biggest and most life-threatening injury was your head injury. We think your head hit the seat in front of you. There was swelling in your brain, and we had to cut open your skull to relieve the pressure. The freezing temperatures actually saved you. They slowed your heart down so you didn't bleed to death, and they kept your brain from swelling too much before you got to the hospital."

I blinked twice to let him know I was listening and understanding.

"We weren't quite sure what your recovery was going to be like following that head injury. You seem to be understanding us and trying to communicate, which are good signs. Once the breathing tube comes out, we can do more testing and see if there are any cognitive changes."

I blinked twice again. I didn't think there were any cognitive changes. I was aware of my surroundings, knew who my mother was, and thinking complex thoughts. I wanted to be able to open my mouth and tell the doctor that, but I couldn't.

"You also suffered catastrophic musculoskeletal crush injuries and fractures. Your pelvis was so badly crushed that we had to replace several bones with rods and plates. We also had to replace your right acetabulum. Unfortunately, the damage in your pelvis was so severe that we were not able to save your uterus. We tried to save it, to give you the opportunity to bear children in the future if you wanted, but you would have bled to death if we hadn't operated when we did."

I wasn't all that upset about the prospect of not having kids. I know that was something my mother always wanted for me, but honestly after Maura got engaged, I had stopped thinking about having any kind of a relationship with anyone. Kids were an even less likely event at that point. I glanced over at my mother. She had been silently crying the entire time the doctor had been speaking. She seemed more upset over all of this than I was. I felt... removed from it all. Like it hadn't really happened. It wasn't me the doctor was talking about, even though I knew he was.

The doctor was still talking. "Your bowel was perforated and subsequently caused a serious infection. It was one of the reasons why you were in a coma for so long. We did surgery to remove a part of your bowel. We were able to reattach it to your colon, so you will not need to use a colostomy bag."

I shuddered involuntarily at the thought.

"Your L5 vertebra was fractured. Thankfully it did not cause an impingement on your spinal cord. We were able to surgically fuse the L4-L5 vertebrae to give you more spinal stability.

"We inserted several rods and screws in both your femurs to correct the fractures there. We had to replace your left patella. Your left tibia and your right fibula were fractured as well, and you sustained undisplaced bilateral ankle fractures that seem to be healing well without intervention."

I blinked again, still listening.

"Lastly your hands were also broken. You may have put them out in front of you to brace yourself. Your hands were pinned under a large section of metal, which we think came from the outside wall of the train. They did not require surgery as the fractures were to smaller bones. Recent x-rays confirm that the fractures to your hands seem to have healed well."

I blinked.

"You've had two months to heal, which is a good thing. While you were comatose we put a plate on your skull to close up the hole we had to make. You've had great EEG results, meaning your brain seems to be working well.

"Your infection from your perforated bowel also cleared up when we put you on broad spectrum antibiotics after your surgery.

"Most of your fractures are well on their way to healing. The open reductions and internal fixations we did also aid in the healing process. I would anticipate that, barring anything negative that comes up on the testing we do over the next few days, you should be able to start rehab within the next month. Tomorrow we're going to move you out of critical care and into intensive care. Within a few days we hope to move you to a step-down unit so we can remove the breathing tube and wean you off of your reliance on it.

"The fractures to your hands were the least severe and also the quickest to heal, so we're going to start you on physical therapy for your hands tomorrow. This way by the time you're ready to go off to rehab, your hands will be able to support you using a wheelchair and eventually a walker."

I stared at the doctor. A wheelchair?

"Miss Rizzoli, could you let me know you've understood all of this?"

I blinked at him. I had heard his words, and they had registered, but I wasn't sure I actually understood. How could I be a homicide detective if I couldn't walk? I had suspects to chase, warrants to serve, and questioning to conduct from a standing position, to be intimidating.

"Once you go to rehab, you'll be able to explore your vocational options with your therapists. As of right now, however, I regret to tell you that you will be unable to return to police work. At least not for the time being."

I finally cried then, and it set off all sorts of alarms on the machines I was hooked up to. Before I could stop, a nurse was injecting something into my IV and I was falling asleep. I could hear my mother crying in the background as I dropped off.

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**A/N:** More soon.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** A great big, warm, special thanks to CharlietheCAG for beta'ing this chapter for me. She's awesomesauce, people.

**Warning:** This chapter contains mentions of suicide.

* * *

A few days after that nameless doctor broke the news of my prospects for recovery, they moved me into the intensive care unit, which was bigger and more open than the critical care room I was in originally. I was no longer in a fracture bed and had some mobility of my hands, neck and back. I sat up in the bed for the first time in more than two months. I lasted all of five minutes before the pain in my pelvis became so overwhelming that I started to cry.

The nurse on duty lowered the head of the bed to a more comfortable angle, and I promised myself that would be the last time I would allow myself to cry over my injuries, no matter how much pain I was in. I needed to get a better grip on my emotions, if only so I had some semblance of control. At that moment, I had no control over anything, and every bit of news I received only served to make me feel even more hopeless.

I had my first session with a physical therapist for my hands. It was painful, but I'd experienced pain like that before, and the therapist was impressed with my tolerance and my willingness to work with her through the pain. I don't think she understood why exactly I was so keen to get full mobility back in my hands. Having use of my hands again would give me a modicum of control back.

In anticipation of weaning me off the respirator and starting physical therapy, they had started to wean me off the morphine I was on in the days following my arrival in the intensive care unit. As a result, I was more aware of my surroundings and the various injuries I had sustained. I was starting to go through withdrawal, which isn't completely unexpected after long term use. I suffered through it in silence, not willing to admit to the doctors and nurses that I was suffering, even though my problems at that point were blatantly obvious to anyone who saw me.

Because I couldn't talk, I had a lot of time to think. Thinking was definitely a dangerous thing for me at that time. Most of my thoughts were dark and full of self-pity and self-loathing. It didn't take me long to figure out that in less than two years I had lost the two things most important to me in my life.

Maura and my career.

I didn't know how to live without Maura, so I had thrown myself into my career. Now I didn't even have that, and I didn't know how I was going to live.

I didn't want to live. This one thought chased me in my waking hours no matter how much I tried to push it away. I didn't want to live. I didn't understand why, if I was this broken, so many efforts had been taken to save me. All I was going to be was a burden to my family. I was going to experience pain and disappointment for the rest of my life. A week later, I decided that it would be better for everyone, me included, if I didn't live. I was alone in my bed with my thoughts, and a new thought occurred to me. With each minute that passed, the idea seemed better and better. I felt settled with the idea. It was something I could do to end the situation, and it felt right. I felt calm for the first time since I'd woken up, once I'd made my decision.

Later that particular night, long after my mother had returned to her hotel and the nurse on duty had given me my last dose of painkillers, I moved my hands up to the tape holding the tube going down my throat in place, and peeled it off my face. I had a lot more mobility in my hands than I thought I would have, but I had survived hand injuries before and knew what to expect.

I then wrapped my hands around the tube in my throat and pulled it upward.

The pain was excruciating. In the two months the tube had been down my throat, breathing for me, my throat had swollen around it. Pulling it out was like pulling off the first layer of skin in my trachea, but I didn't let it stop me.

I fought against the pain and the blackness that danced up in front of my eyes. I wanted that tube out. I knew I couldn't breathe without it. Without Maura and without my detective's badge, I didn't want to breathe. I didn't want to exist. Pulling out that tube was going to help me get what I wanted.

I don't know how far I had gotten the tube out, but I know I had stopped breathing and there was a horrible pain in my chest as my lungs collapsed. The machine I was hooked up to started to beep. I tried harder at that point to pull the tube out, because I knew that I had only seconds until the nurse showed up to check the alarm on the respirator. My body began to struggle for oxygen, and it was becoming harder to stay conscious. I hadn't gotten the tube all the way out yet though, and I needed to stay awake long enough to finish the job.

Already I could hear the squeak of the nurse's shoes on the linoleum as she hustled across the unit toward me.

I gave one more tug and felt something tear in my throat. I tugged again and whatever it was that was tearing, tore some more. I kept tugging, telling myself that it would all be over in a few minutes, and this new pain was nothing compared to a lifetime of pain.

I tugged again, moving the tube just a little bit further out of place.

I was in agony, but the lack of oxygen was starting to confuse me, and after a few more seconds, the pain didn't register anymore.

I tugged once more before the nurse got there and gasped in surprise. She pressed an alarm, and I don't remember anything else because I finally lost consciousness.

Unfortunately, I woke up. And when I did wake up, I was dismayed to find I had been given a tracheostomy, which is when the breathing tube is placed through a hole in the neck, just under the vocal cords.

I also woke up to separate, stern lectures from the doctor on duty, each of the nurses on duty, and my mother about not pulling out tubes. They were there for a reason, and I needed them.

The good news, the respiratory therapist told me brightly later that day, was that I had been given a tracheostomy that wasn't permanent, and the ventilator tube I had been given had a special seal that would allow me to talk when my throat healed. I would even be able to eat real food once my throat healed.

Everyone assumed that the reason I had tried to pull out my breathing tube was simply because I didn't want it anymore.

My reputation as a stubborn woman who did as she pleased and didn't let anything stand in her way preceded me, even to the intensive care unit at a Hartford hospital.

No one imagined that I had a darker need to fulfill by pulling out that tube. No one thought for one second that I'd had a motive besides breathing on my own. After all, who would come back from the brink of death just to kill themselves? Nobody, it seemed, understood me or what I was going through.

As I lay there dozing, my mother mentioned to Maura on the phone that I had tried to pull out my breathing tube. "Could you believe it?" Ma asked, "Janie really wants to get out of this place." She thought I was sleeping, but I could overhear her on her cell phone to Maura.

Maura was the only one who understood what I had been trying to do. She didn't say anything to my mother because I had been given the tracheostomy and now had a respiratory therapist watching my every move, and she didn't want to give my mother something else to worry about. Instead, she let my mother chatter on about how happy she was that I wanted to get off that tube and out of that hospital.

The next day a private nurse showed up, presumably to watch over me and make sure I didn't try to hurt myself again. My mother saw it as another sign of Maura's never-ending generosity that she would send someone to help take care of me. I saw it as an admonishment.

Two days later I was moved into a step-down unit and began my respiratory therapy on a regular basis. The therapist would remove the ventilator tube and leave me to breathe as much as I could through my nose and mouth. If that failed, I could breathe through the tracheostomy. When I got tired or weak, the ventilator was placed back onto the stoma where the tracheostomy was and therapy would be over for a few hours.

I did better than I thought I was going to do, spending a full fifteen minutes off the ventilator on the first attempt. Had I actually tried, I probably could have spent even longer off the ventilator.

Trying, it seemed, was no longer part of my vocabulary. I even gave up on the idea of killing myself, not because I suddenly felt like life was worth living, but instead because I couldn't even do that.

I had completely lost control of my life, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

As the days passed, my throat slowly began to heal from the damage I had done trying to pull out my breathing tube. I didn't try to talk at first, because even swallowing was painful, and exercising the muscles in my throat made me see stars. I had done a lot of damage to my throat when I pulled that tube out, and it would take it a long time to heal. The doctors and nurses even encouraged me to speak only when necessary to prevent further damage. I had nothing worth saying anyway, so staying silent wasn't a problem. I don't think my mother even realized that speaking was now a possibility for me. Instead, I sat in silence and brooded.

The following weekend, both Frankie and Tommy came down to visit.

I expected their visit to be awkward, considering how I had left things with them when I left Boston, but their happiness at seeing me awake and coherent was genuine. I was nervous about their arrival, and upset that they would see me in the condition I was in. By the time they'd arrived though, and their happiness at seeing me awake was evident, I was happy to see them both, too.

Visiting hours in the step-down unit were not as restricted as they were in the critical care and intensive care units, so they spent a few hours getting me caught up on things. They chattered about Jo Friday and Korsak's gas problem when he ate too much fiber. Tommy had gotten a job with a construction contractor, and he had plenty of stories to tell me about life in the construction business.

Tommy also had a ton of pictures of TJ on his phone and spent some time letting me scroll through them, stopping to tell me about each one of them. TJ had grown so much in the eight months since I had left Boston. He wasn't a little baby anymore. He was a toddler, almost a little boy. He was precocious just like Tommy had been at that age. His personality shined through in every photograph. Despite my feeling of hopelessness, I longed to just hold him and hug him and smell his little toddler smell. I wanted to play with his Matchbox cars and have him show me the pictures he drew on construction paper. I had missed so much, it seemed. TJ became a tiny beacon of hope in an otherwise dark time.

When I scrolled through to a photo of Maura holding TJ at his birthday party earlier in the January, I uttered the first sound I had made since my accident. It was a cross between a surprised gasp and a strangled cry. Maura was still a part of my family, perhaps more so than I had been while I was away, so it would make sense that she would be at TJ's third birthday party. Seeing her in the photo really took me by surprise though. She looked thinner than I remembered, and tired, but she grinned as she held on to TJ and posed him for the camera. It was the first time I'd seen a photo of Maura since I'd moved away.

Frankie saw the picture I was looking at and smacked Tommy in the arm. Suddenly Tommy had to go use the restroom and took his phone with him, leaving Frankie behind.

"She was going to come with us to see you this weekend, but duty called and she had to bail at the last minute." Frankie said in reply to my little outburst.

I nodded. I looked at Frankie, and my expression told him everything he needed to know. I loved Maura. I missed her terribly. Yet I didn't want her to see me like this, and was relieved that she didn't come with them. It was hard enough letting my brothers see me like this. It was hard enough getting over the wedge I'd driven between us all when I left.

"It's been hard on her too, Janie." Frankie said quietly, reading both the expression on my face and my thoughts.

I looked up at him, waiting for him to explain further. He didn't have anything else to say about Maura though, and even if I wanted to ask, I couldn't make my throat make the sounds to ask more about her.

She wasn't any of my business anymore, and it was better if I didn't ask anyway. Part of me ached to know, and part of me thought it was better to just let it go and not think about her at all. All of me knew that not thinking of her was not going to be possible.

Also conspicuously absent from Frankie's visit was any mention of his work. My mother must have told Frankie what the doctor had told me about not returning to police work, and warned him not to bring it up.

Or maybe he was just so mad at me that he really didn't want to talk to me. I wanted to ask him, but was too afraid of his reply. Instead he brought the conversation back to me.

"I hear that Ma wants to bring you back to Boston for rehab."

I shrugged. I hadn't thought much about rehab. If I couldn't work, if I couldn't be a detective again, there was little point in me doing rehab. There was little point in me doing anything, anymore.

"You could get better and go back to work, you know. It's not impossible, Jane."

I looked at him, all of the confidence and encouragement he was offering, and despite myself, I started to cry silently. Impossible was a very distinct possibility.

"You can't give up. It's gonna be hard and it's gonna hurt and it's gonna be disappointing sometimes, but you can't give up, Janie. If anyone can do this, it's you."

I didn't really believe him, but I pulled him toward me and gave him a hug. And while I had him close to me, I spoke for the first time.

"I'm sorry." It was all I managed to get out, my voice barely capable of a hoarse whisper. I was sorry for the way I left things in Boston. I was sorry for not trying to make contact with him for the six months I was gone. And I was sorry that I was going to let him down when I never returned to work.

"I'm sorry too, Sis."

He pulled out of my hug and gave me a weak smile. "I really thought we were going to lose you, and I hadn't spoken to you in six months. I never got to tell you that I love you, Jane. You're my sister and I've looked up to you my entire life. I was mad at you for what you did to Maura, even though in a way, looking back at things, I think I understand why you did what you did. I'm still kinda mad at you for doing that to her though. We all love Maura like family, and you just don't hurt family like that. But I'm glad you're okay. I don't wanna not talk to you anymore. I miss you. I wanna help you get through this. You're gonna be okay, Janie."

I nodded at him.

"You need to tell her you're sorry too."

I looked down at my hands.

"She would listen if you told her you were sorry. It's not even that she's looking for an apology from you. She's just looking for her best friend back. She's been lost without you."

I couldn't meet his gaze. I had a hard time believing that she missed me. Maura had been so wrapped up in her fiancé, that I didn't think she would notice I was gone.

"She misses you. She really does."

I nodded, still not looking at him, not believing him.

"She needs you. She needed you, a few months ago-" He stopped suddenly and I looked up at him, waiting for him to elaborate, but he didn't. "She needs you. You're her best friend and she needs you. And she's doing so much for you, just so you can get better and come home. So get better for her, because I know just by looking at you that you're not even going to try to get better for yourself. You can't lie to me and tell me that you haven't already given up on yourself. I can see it plain as day. So do it for her, Jane. Do it for all of us because we love you whether you know it or not."

I didn't say anything to him. I couldn't even if I wanted to. My throat hurt from whispering my apology to him before, and despite my efforts I was crying pretty hard.

"We gotta go, but we'll see you when you go to rehab in a couple of weeks, yeah?" Frankie said, and I realized that Tommy was back and had heard Frankie's little speech to me.

I nodded, and reached out to Tommy to hug him.

"When you're back in Boston, we'll get you a new cell phone and then I can send you pictures of TJ all the time." Tommy said, trying to lighten the mood a little.

I smiled at him. "Thanks," I rasped out.

"Take care, Janie." Tommy said.

Frankie leaned over and gave me a kiss on my forehead before he left. He got a few feet from my bed before he turned around and spoke once more.

"They offered me your spot in homicide before I left work to come here this weekend. They finally decided Korsak and Frost were too overwhelmed on their own, so they offered it to me. I turned them down. Told them to hold that spot for you. Told them it was going to take a while, but that spot belongs to you. And Cavanaugh, he looked at me like I was nuts not to jump on the opportunity. So you, you gotta get better and take that spot back, you got that? Because I don't want to regret giving up that chance, understand?"

I looked at Frankie with my eyes wide and my mouth hanging open. I tried to say something to him, to tell him to take the job and not worry about me, but I couldn't. My lips moved but I couldn't get my mouth to work and I couldn't get my vocal cords to cooperate. I flailed my hands out in front of myself wildly, trying to get my point across. In the end I just wheezed into the ventilator and he laughed at me, having understood my reaction perfectly well.

"I mean it, Janie. I'd only give that up for you, so don't you give up, yeah?"

I nodded, just to placate him, and unable to tell him I couldn't guarantee anything, and he left.

* * *

**A/N:** So maybe there's a glimmer of hope fo Jane?

For those of you asking, Maura shows back up around chapter 10 and you'll find out all about her starting with that chapter. There are brief mentions of her in coming chapters though.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Happy Easter, if Easter is your thing! If not, happy Sunday!

Remember folks, this is a _fictional story_, so if you're looking to this fic for medical advice or 100% true-to-life medical information, you're looking in the wrong spot! ;)

Thank you to everyone who has been leaving reviews and following this story. I read all of your reviews and appreciate each one of them.

* * *

For a few days, I put my heart and soul into my respiratory and physical therapy. I let the notion that there was a slim chance that I could get better and go back to work for BPD Homicide buoy me, and I made impressive progress.

By the end of the following week I was almost completely off the respirator. I used it only at night, and only when I really needed it. The doctors were talking about capping the port where the tube went into my throat, before I went to rehab.

My hands worked like they should. They were occasionally sore and I had to work on making my grip stronger, but for the most part my hands were healed. They'd had two months while I was in a coma to get better, and as the least detrimental of my injuries, they were healed by the time I was ready to go to rehab. I felt like they were something I could cross off my list of parts that needed fixing.

The physical therapist had decided that it was safe for me to start some strengthening exercises in my abdomen and legs, to prepare me for physical therapy on my pelvis and lower body. The doctor signed off on the new therapy and I spent the next two weeks, before entering rehab, working on making myself stronger. We hadn't even started on the actual therapy, just stretches and strengthening tactics.

The pain was almost unbearable.

I realized that rehab was going to be a painful experience.

By the end of the first month after I had regained consciousness, and three months after my accident, all of my outstanding test results had come in, and the doctor signed off on the release to send me to rehabilitation. By that Monday a bed would be open at a rehab center just south of Boston. The day before I left, they removed my tracheostomy and bandaged up my throat.

Even I broke out into a grin at hearing the news that the tube was coming out permanently. By that point, it seemed like there just might be a light at the end of the tunnel. I still felt lost and like I had no control over my life, but I wasn't suicidal anymore. I was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, things wouldn't be this bad forever.

For the time being I had forgotten about New York. Not that I forgot that I had worked there for six months, or that I may or may not have had a job waiting there for me to return to, just that I didn't think of it often. My lawyer, my mother assured me, was dealing with things like that for me, and I should not worry about it. I would meet the lawyer when I got to the rehab center, and we would discuss things further then. Right now the only thing I was to worry about was getting better. Everything else would take care of itself, Ma said.

No one from the NYPD had visited or called. I purposefully had not cultivated anything but a strictly professional relationship with the people I worked with after that first disastrous night out with them, when I had first arrived there. I hadn't made a single friend in the six months I had been down there. I wasn't the least bit surprised that no one called or visited. Ma said that my unit did send flowers, but they had long since wilted and died while I was comatose.

New York had been a purgatory of sorts for me. It's where I went to wait things out, and find a new life for myself, but the waiting had been interrupted by my accident.

Going back to Boston felt like going home. A home is really what I needed more than anything else. I needed somewhere I could feel like I belonged, and I needed to be surrounded by people who knew me and loved me. New York was most definitely not that place.

Before I left the hospital for rehab my mother told me that the lawyer Maura had hired as my guardian ad litem had arranged to have my apartment in New York packed up and my belongings moved into storage, so that way I would not have to continue to pay rent on the apartment. I agreed that this sounded like a good idea and asked that my things be brought back to Boston and stored there.

My mother beamed at me. She was thrilled that I seemed to be abandoning New York in favor of Boston. We both knew that if I had my belongings transferred back to Boston, I would be likely to stay there. If my belongings remained in storage in New York, at some point I would have to return, and neither my mother nor I wanted that.

They offered to sedate me for the trip back to Boston in the ambulette, because it was likely to be a long and uncomfortable ride, but I turned them down. I wanted to be able to see Boston through the back of the ambulette's windows as we arrived there. For the first time in a very long time, I felt hopeful and excited about something. I sure as hell didn't want to sleep through it.

On a normal day the trip from Hartford to Boston would have taken about two hours. The slow speed of the ambulette combined with the normal traffic along Interstate 95 and the winter weather made the trip take just over three hours.

My mother had left the hospital an hour ahead of us so she could meet us at the rehab center and help get me settled in my room. I was getting a private room with my own private nurse; something I knew would have never been covered under workers compensation. I wondered if Maura and her infinite finances had something to do with that.

I did sleep for part of the trip, but the ambulette medic woke me as we started getting close. I felt nervous and excited at the same time. Boston in winter is beautiful. Boston in winter after you've been gone for nearly nine months and you almost died, is absolutely gorgeous. The way the snow sticks to the bare tree branches lining the streets, offering shimmering whiteness that glows in the few hours of sunlight each day more than makes up for the lack of green leaves. The frequent snowfalls mute the city noises, and the city takes on a hushed persona- as if the population as a whole is hunkering down to wait out the cold. I hadn't experienced a true winter in New York before I'd left, and I had no idea if this phenomenon was unique to Boston, but it felt that way to me. I felt like I was coming home again, finally.

I arrived at the rehab achy and exhausted, but ready for the next part of my recovery.

My mother was already in the room with two nurses and a man I didn't recognize. They all smiled at me warmly as I was transferred into my bed from the stretcher I had arrived on. Sitting up for long periods was still painfully difficult for me, but I was doing better with it after each new day.

After I was settled in, the nurses introduced themselves. There was Amy, the chief daytime floor nurse and Sara, my private nurse. The man was Jeffrey Sheridan, director of the facility. When he said his name I looked quickly over to my mother, to see if she had heard his last name as well. She was looking out the window, ignoring me.

I shook his hand and wanted to ask if he was related to William Sheridan, Maura's fiancé- no, Maura's husband. He didn't give me the chance to talk though. He was clearly a busy man and unused to greeting new patients. The longer I sat there, the more I realized that my placement in this specific facility with this man and this private nurse in this private room was Maura's doing. No one else in my family would have had the pull or the financial resources to make these arrangements for me. How many other patients got a run down on their care from the director of the facility? Probably not many, if any at all.

I wondered what else Maura had done for me.

I wondered why she had even bothered.

Jeffrey prattled on while I was lost in my thoughts. "So tomorrow we'll get you started on your various physical therapies. We're going to get you off of the urinary catheter. By next week we should be able to remove your feeding tube and start you on blended foods, working you back onto solid foods. You'll have to complete a swallow test later this week first."

I nodded at him. I still wasn't speaking much; it was still painfully difficult. I couldn't imagine eating food of any kind at this point.

"Amy will give you your therapy schedule, and Sara will see to any of your needs that you may have. Today Sara will give you a bath and you're welcome to join any of the group activities going on this evening if you feel up to it."

It occurred to me when he mentioned my bath that I hadn't bathed, not properly at least, in almost three months. I suddenly felt rather gross. I looked over at Sara and she gave me a small nod. Maybe she thought I was gross too.

I realized that Jeffrey was waiting for a response from me, so I nodded and rasped out a thank you to him.

He left after that and Amy talked a little bit about the rules and the schedules at the facility. Visiting hours were from ten in the morning until ten at night. Since I had a private room, a cot could be arranged for any overnight visitors, if I wished to have any. Overnight visitors should be cleared through the nurse's desk beforehand, I was informed, if possible.

The facility was a non-smoking facility. This had no bearing on me.

Likewise, alcohol and illicit drugs were not permitted. My pain medications would be distributed by the nurse on duty. She didn't say it, but I gathered that addiction was a problem among many people recovering from serious injuries. Earlier in the month I had gone through mild withdrawal when the last of my morphine had been stopped. I could only imagine how bad it must be for people with intractable pain who rely on those drugs just to make life tolerable enough to live.

What I could imagine was that the chronic, intractable pain that many of the patients here felt, was a lot like the hole in my chest that Maura had left me with. I tried to tell myself that she never purposely hurt me, but her entire relationship with William had cut me like a knife. I'd sacrificed my own happiness to give her a chance with the man she loved, and in doing so, I'd left myself with an emotional pain that no painkiller could touch.

"Your schedule here is going to be a busy one. We have a lot of ground to cover. Breakfast is at seven in the morning. Since you're still on a feeding tube, either myself or one of the other nurses will feed you through the feeding tube until you pass your swallow test and can be started on food by mouth. At that time you'll be welcome to join the other residents in the dining room. Later on I'll show you where that is. After breakfast you have physical therapy from eight until noon. Lunch is from twelve-thirty to one-thirty. After lunch you have a daily session with Dr. Gilfried for an hour. Dinner is at six o'clock.

"You're free to do as you like from after dinner onward, but I am warning you now that the first few days are going to be absolutely exhausting and you'll probably want to go right to bed. In the beginning I encourage you to do that. You're going to need all the rest you can get.

"Once a week you'll see Dr. Grossberg for your follow up consultations. Dr. Grossberg will make recommendations on your physical therapy and we will adjust your therapies and schedules based on her recommendations."

"I thought I was seeing Dr. Gilfried for that?" I asked.

"Dr. Gilfried is your psychologist." Amy said.

I opened my mouth to protest, but my mother's stern look and Amy's quick "Everyone here sees the psychologist," stopped me cold.

"You'll get used to it, Ms. Rizzoli."

I shook my head in disbelief but didn't say anything.

"Sara will be here with you daily from lunch until you go to bed. After that you'll need to rely on the evening and night nurses if you need anything. If things become difficult for you, you can discuss adding a night nurse with your family."

I actually wasn't even sure why I needed a private nurse during the day. I disliked the idea of being babysat.

"Our goal is to get you back up and on your feet as soon as we can. The next several weeks are going to be difficult at best. Just remember we all have your best interests at heart. We're here to help, but not to coddle you, and we are going to push you to do your best every day."

I grunted at her. I wondered if they knew just how much motivation they were going to need with me. I wondered if anyone had warned them of how stubborn I could be. I wondered if I was the only one who remembered the doctor's warning that I would be unable to go back to police work. This was going to be an adventure for us all.

While Sara started prepping the bathroom for my bath, Amy eased me into a wheelchair and my mother wheeled me around the floor. They showed me where the dining room was and where some of the group activity rooms were. I had no intention of socializing while I was here, and didn't even pay attention as Amy rattled off the activities schedule.

"There are eight residents on this floor, including you. Residents are grouped according to their level of ability and the types of therapy they need. We find that this helps to give people a sense of camaraderie. Everyone on this floor has experienced an injury that is similar in nature to what you're going through."

It felt weird to think that. I wasn't alone in my suffering, at least not the physical suffering. I was pretty sure that no one else on the floor had fallen in love with their best friend and then watched that best friend get engaged to someone else.

Amy continued her tour. "Later on, when you're more mobile, and the weather is warmer, you'll be free to visit the grounds outside too. For now though, you're confined to the floor. By next week we hope to have you in a wheelchair and wheeling yourself around though. That's one of your first goals, along with getting off the urinary catheter."

I blushed at the idea, and it didn't go unnoticed.

"There's no shame here, Ms. Rizzoli. Everyone here on this floor has suffered some kind of catastrophic injury or illness. They're all at different stages of recovery, but every one of them had to start somewhere, just like you."

"Right." I muttered, and they wheeled me back into my room, where Sara was waiting for me.

My mother kissed me goodbye when we got back to my room.

"Tomorrow is going to be a tough day. Do you want me to come and stay with you tomorrow?"

I shook my head. "Thank you," I squeaked out. "You should rest." I finished.

"If you need me, just call me. I'll come running."

I nodded at her and gave her a hug. She seemed surprised at the gesture, and it saddened me that I didn't hug her more often in the past.

"I love you, Janie."

"I love you too, Ma."

After that my mother and Amy left, and Sara rolled my chair into the large private bathroom. She stopped the chair in front of the sink, which was specially made for people using wheelchairs and had a tall mirror behind it. It was then that I got the first look at myself since my accident.

I almost asked who the strange person was in the room with us was, until I realized it was me.

They had shaved my head to deal with the injuries. In the three months since my accident a short, fine spattering of hair had started to grow back, but the scars from my skull surgery were still clearly visible, and I had a number of bald spots.

I was incredibly thin. The pajamas I had worn on the trip up from Hartford hung off of my body. I had huge, dark circles under my eyes and my entire face looked sunken. My skin had an almost alien-like yellow pallor. There was a bandage on my neck where my tracheostomy had been.

Sara started taking my pajama bottoms off of me, and I caught a glimpse of my legs. Where there had once been toned muscle and tanned skin, there was nothing but skin and bones. Where they had used pins and rods to put my legs back together, there were still bruises and surgical scars. On one of my legs, I could make out the faint outline of a pin that protruded from the bone under my skin because of how thin I had gotten.

When Sara removed my top, I looked back at the mirror and saw the long scars along my abdomen, where they'd done my hysterectomy, corrected my internal injuries and replaced my hip. My ribs protruded from my body and my skin was so sallow and thin, that I thought for sure I could see right through it. My feeding tube protruded from my stomach, just above and to the left of my navel, like an alien antenna of some kind that matched my alien yellow skin.

I had more scars than ever before, and I wasn't proud of them. Not like in the past. I hadn't done anything heroic to earn these battle scars.

I gasped, shocked at what was left of me. My hand raced up to my head first, an instinctual reaction to look for the long brown locks of hair that weren't there anymore. My other hand flew up to the bandage over where my tracheostomy had been and then down to the feeding tube, fingering them gently.

"It's better if you don't touch those, just so you don't accidentally give yourself an infection." Sara said quietly, gently.

I looked at her, terrified. For a split second I had forgotten she was there. I wanted to ask her where my body went. The person in this chair wasn't me.

"It's shocking, the first time you see yourself after an accident like this. I've seen it happen to other patients too. You have to remember that you've been through terrible trauma, and your body is still healing. Your hair will grow back, and in a few weeks the feeding tube will be gone. The hole in your throat is healing already, and soon that won't be easily visible anymore.

"Once you start eating again, you will put on some weight and you won't see your ribs like that anymore. The scars will fade, and once your liver enzymes balance back out, you won't look so yellow.

"Don't worry so much about what you look like. Remember that everyone here is going through something similar. Just concentrate on your therapies and get better. With every new day things will be a little more normal."

I liked Sara, despite having just met her. She knew what she was doing, and she didn't try to sugarcoat anything for me.

"I'd like to move you to the bench in the tub, and remove your catheter. Do you think you want to try not using it tonight?"

I nodded.

It turns out that removing a catheter is quite painful. There was no way that thing was going back inside of me after I was done with my bath. Sara seemed to sense what I was thinking and smiled. "Sorry about that. I tried to be gentle."

I nodded again.

"You don't talk much, do you?" Sara asked.

"It's painful to talk." I said quietly. "And it's embarrassing to be here like this."

"Well, the more you talk, the more you'll get used to speaking again. Get those muscles ready for your swallow test next week. If you get your muscles strong and can swallow well, I can start sneaking you in cheeseburgers."

I laughed, then groaned at the pain it caused in my throat. I loved the idea of a cheeseburger, but my throat had other ideas.

"And as for the embarrassment, well, this is my job. You're not the first naked person I've dealt with, and you won't be my last."

I blushed.

"Come on, let's get you bathed. I bet you're going to love this in the end."

I'd never enjoyed a bath as much as I had that one. I had to sit on a special bench and make sure my tracheostomy bandage didn't get submerged, but it felt so good to sit in the hot water and relax. I secretly wished for some bubble bath and a candle, but it would be a long time before I could take a bath like that. When I was done, I no longer smelled like iodine and hospital and accumulated body yuck.

That had been Sara's term. She said "Let's get rid of some of this accumulated body yuck," and I had laughed. I was sure that after three months of nothing but sponge baths, I had plenty of accumulated body yuck.

She brought a clean pair of pajamas in along with an adult diaper, and I raised my eyebrow at her.

"You probably won't need this, but you've had a catheter in for three months. I'm just being safe rather than sorry."

I wanted to rip the horrible thing out of her hand and destroy it, but I had been on a catheter for three months. Like she said though, I probably wouldn't need it. I was determined to make sure of that. This entire situation was humiliating enough, I certainly wasn't going to let it spiral any further out of control.

Before she put it on me, I asked her to help me to the toilet. She seated me on the toilet and for the first time in three months I used it. It was something so incredibly miniscule, but at the same time it felt like a massive accomplishment. It was way better than relying on the urinary catheter or a bedpan for the other stuff, even if I still had to have an audience while I did it.

By that point the ache in my pelvis had become intolerable, and I asked if I could lie in bed for a while. I was unused to sitting up for long periods and it was definitely taking a toll on me. Sara got me dressed in pajamas and wheeled me back into the room, where she got me settled on the bed. Not long thereafter, there was a knock at the door. A man stood there, in an expensive suit.

"Excuse me, Ms. Rizzoli?" he asked.

"That's me." I rasped out.

"Hi," he stuck out his hand to shake mine. "I'm Walter Laffler. I'm your attorney."

"Oh, hi." I rasped out.

Sara walked over. "I'll just go down the hall to the nurse's station, to give you some time to talk. If you need anything, use the button here-" she pointed to a device on the table next to the bed, "and I'll come right back."

"Thanks."

Sara left and the attorney waited to speak until she had gotten out of the room.

"It's good to see you doing so well. I stopped in to see you in Hartford when you first got there."

I nodded. "I can't talk much." I said.

"I understand. I just wanted to go over some things with you, if that's all right."

I nodded.

He explained to me that he had been retained by Maura Isles to act as my guardian ad litem, because I had been incapacitated by my injuries and needed someone to protect my interests while I was unconscious.

Now that I was awake and coherent though, I no longer needed a guardian ad litem, so he had paperwork for me to fill out to file with the courts.

"Does that mean you won't be my lawyer anymore?" I asked.

"No, it doesn't work like that. This paperwork tells the court that you no longer need guardianship, and you're capable of making your own decisions instead of me making them for you. I would like to continue to represent you as your attorney though."

"I don't know how to pay you for your services." I rasped.

"My initial fees have been taken care of by Dr. Isles. Any further payment comes as a percentage of any settlements you may receive. In the very unlikely event that we do not receive a settlement, I receive no further monies. My fee is thirty percent of any settlement I arrange for you."

I nodded. I had heard of arrangements like that, and the fee seemed to be the same as what other people had paid as a result car accidents and such.

"Okay."

Good. Let's go over this paperwork that I need you to fill out and let me tell you a little about what I've been doing for you."

We proceeded to go over paperwork to remove the guardian ad litem status with the courts, a document that indicated I consented to him representing me, and several other documents granting various people specific powers of attorney so that they could access my bank accounts, pay bills for me, and so on.

Next he talked to me about the lawsuits he had filed on my behalf. "Amtrak is in a difficult position. They're being hit with hundreds of wrongful death suits, and they know they are in a precarious liability position. As a government entity, they're better protected than a private carrier like a motor coach would have been due to sovereign immunity, but you're definitely going to see something significant for your pain and suffering."

"What about work?" I asked.

"Your compensation fund is paying your medical bills and is issuing a temporary disability payment to you. You do have some income coming in, but it's not a lot. One of the demands we're making in our lawsuits is for lost wages and future lost earnings."

I sighed. I didn't like the idea of future lost earnings.

"Don't worry, Ms. Rizzoli. I'm making sure you're going to be well taken care of. I'd love to see you go back to work and enjoy a wonderful career. But if that can't happen, I'm making sure you're taken care of as a result."

"I just want to go back to work."

"Then we'll make sure you get the best care there is so we can make that happen." He paused. "I had to take certain liberties while you were incapacitated. I think your mother told you about your apartment in Manhattan?"

I nodded.

"I also had to deal with the NYPD and the status of your employment there. The police union forbids you for being terminated for this event, but there are incentives to voluntarily giving up your employment with them. It's not going to affect your benefits in any way. They need to fill your position, but they can't fire you. Instead they're offering you a settlement package to walk away."

I cringed at the term and he noticed.

"Sorry, I didn't mean-"

"S'okay." I whispered.

"They're offering you two years' salary as severance and a guarantee that your medical bills are taken care of, plus attorney's fees. It's rather generous, considering you were there for just six months."

"What do you suggest I do?"

"I suggest you let me haggle with them a bit to see if I can't squeeze something more out of them, and then take the improved offer."

"Does that mean that I can't ever work as a detective again?"

"Not at all. But it does mean you can't work for the NYPD again without repaying any settlement first. I'm sure they'll make that a part of the settlement agreement."

He saw me hesitate.

"I think it's in your best interest to accept the settlement. It will guarantee your medical bills are taken care of, and give you a nest egg to start out with once you leave rehab. The settlements from the lawsuits we filed could take years to come in."

"Okay." I whispered.

"I'll contact you with the final details after I make them a counter offer and see what more we can get."

I nodded and he handed me his card. "If you need anything, have any questions or just want to know what's going on, just call me."

"Thank you." I croaked. As he walked away, I stopped him. "Mr. Laffler?"

"Please, I'm Walter."

"Okay. And I'm Jane."

He nodded, and waited for me to continue.

"Do you know why Dr. Isles is doing all of this for me?"

He looked at me, completely puzzled. "I don't ask why, Jane. I just do the work I was retained to do. But if I were to make assumptions, which I don't generally do, I would assume that Dr. Isles is doing this for you because she cares about you a great deal. I would recommend, however, that you ask her this yourself if you want a definitive answer."

"Right." I said, not really surprised by his answer. What else was I expecting him to say? I sighed. "Could you please thank Dr. Isles for me? I'm sure I wouldn't be where I am now if it wasn't for her."

"Of course."

"Thanks."

He left after that, and a few minutes later Sara was back with my "dinner". The large plastic bottle of liquid nutrition had become a staple since I opened my eyes. She hung the bottle on my IV pole and hooked it up to my feeding tube.

"Everything go all right?" She asked me as she worked.

"That was exhausting." I answered honestly.

"You're going to be saying that a lot, I'm afraid." She said. "But I'll help you as much as I can."

"Thanks."

"Hey, the nurses said it would be okay for you to have some ice chips to suck on. I know it's not the tastiest thing in the world, but the cold chips will help your throat."

"Okay." I said.

"I'll go get them."

She came back with a small cupful of ice chips and at that moment, they were the best things I had ever put in my mouth. It's amazing what three months of liquid nutrition would make you think is delicious. It's amazing what ice chips could do to ease a throat you'd purposely torn up while tearing out your breathing tube two weeks earlier.

After my dinner was finished, Sara took me to the restroom one more time and then got me settled back in bed. She told me how to call for the night nurse, and let me know that the nurses would be in occasionally through the night to check on me. She left the television remote on the table next to the bed and said that someone would be in to wake me up at six-thirty the next morning.

"I'll be here when you come back from physical therapy. Have a good night, and try to get some sleep. Things are really going to get busy tomorrow!"

"Thanks." I said, as I watched her walk out.

I pulled the blanket around me and laid back, my mind filled with worries about therapy, getting back on my feet, and why Maura was doing what she was doing for me. My behavior toward Maura before I left for New York was not behavior fitting of someone who deserved this kind of treatment from an absent benefactor.

Eventually though, the exhaustion of arriving at the rehab for the first time overtook me, and I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

**A/N:** Also, CharlietheCAG is awesome at many things, not the least of which is being a patient, helpful beta. Thank you as always, Charlie.

Thanks again for reading. More soon.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** Due to some very heavy editing and elaborating, Maura won't be appearing until chapter 11 now. I know. I know, you're all REALLY angry about that. But as one of my favorite readers said in a PM to me, Maura's been there for Jane all along, we just haven't seen her. Try to let that sustain you while I work on making this story the best it possibly can be, because that's really what I'm trying to do for you.

Special thanks, as always, go out to CharlietheCAG for her betaing and her encouragement.

Oh yeah, and all that stuff about medical accuracy again. This ain't a Grey's Anatomy fic, people. :)

* * *

I was surprised the next morning when there was a nurse waking me up. Hadn't I just fallen asleep? A look at the clock told me that I'd slept for almost ten hours, straight through. I felt disoriented waking up in that strange new place, and, even though I'd slept deeply, I was still rather tired.

"Good morning," the nurse said pleasantly. "Let's get you dressed and get your breakfast in you. You have a big day today."

"Okay."

She helped me to use the bathroom and I brushed my teeth, another luxury I hadn't realized it was possible to miss. She helped me to get dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt.

"You ready?" she asked me as she disconnected the bottle from my feeding tube an hour later and wheeled me toward the physical therapy area.

"I hope so," I answered.

She pushed me in and introduced me to Derrick, my physical therapist.

Derrick was a large, imposing man with a stubborn-looking scowl on his face. He brightened immediately when he saw me, and shook my hand firmly.

"I hear you're kinda stubborn," he said to me after the nurse left.

"Who told you that?"

"That's for me to know, and you to find out. I'm stubborn too though. Really stubborn."

I grunted.

"I can tell you and I are gonna get along just fine." he remarked, and the day got started.

By nine o'clock I'd had enough. I was physically spent and in a lot of pain. I really was trying to keep it to myself, but there were moments when I cried out in pain and asked him to stop. Derrick wasn't having anything of it though. If my pelvis hurt, we worked on my legs. If my legs hurt, we worked on my ankles. If my ankles hurt, we worked on my hip. Round and round and round we went until an hour before noon, when we finally took a break. He handed me some ice chips.

"You wanna give up," he stated matter of factly.

"No I don't," I replied. It was the truth. I didn't want to give up overall, but I really was done for the day.

"Yes you do. But you won't, because I'm not gonna let you. One more hour. You can do this."

And do it we did.

I was fast asleep in my wheelchair before the nurse could even push me out of the physical therapy room. I slept right through Sara setting up my lunch, and only waking up when she told me I had to go meet with Dr. Gilfried.

I had forgotten all about that. I wanted to protest, tell her that I didn't do psychology and didn't need to talk to anyone, but I was so tired that I just let her put me in the wheelchair and wheel me down the hall to her office.

When I heard the name Dr. Gilfried, I automatically pictured an older woman of Germanic descent that spoke with a heavy accent. I imagined being grilled about my feelings and hearing that I had some sort of strange psychological defect.

The woman sitting across her desk from me was nothing like I had pictured. She was young- around my age, with a beautiful, welcoming smile and a warm, comfortable office. She was dressed very casually. Instead of sitting across from me, she got up from behind her desk and took my chair over near a coffee table. She sat herself next to me in an armchair.

"Normally I'd offer you coffee, but I'm told you're not on food yet. Would you like some ice chips instead?" she asked.

"I'm okay," I rasped out.

"You look exhausted. The first day is always tough."

I nodded and she smiled at me.

"I have to admit, I've never treated a decorated detective before."

"I don't-" I started, but she interrupted me.

"You don't like psychologists. I know. I did a little research; found out that you refused to see your department psychologist after several significant events during your tenure with the Boston Police Department."

"That's not what I was going to say," I said.

"Oh, what were you going to say then?"

"I was just going to say that I didn't think I needed to talk to a psychologist."

"Well, you've suffered massive, life-altering injuries, you're at risk of losing your career to those injuries, and I found out that you abruptly picked up and moved to New York for no apparent reason almost nine months ago, leaving your family, your coworkers, and your friends behind. I'd say we have a lot to talk about."

I looked at her blankly. I'd been through a hell of a lot in my life, and never wanted to see a therapist back then, and I certainly didn't feel like talking to anyone about my feelings at that point either. How could this woman possibly understand what I was going through?

"Today, however, I'm going to talk to you. Give you a day to get ready for our sessions. You can barely keep your eyes open, so I'll keep this brief. Plus I understand that talking is still physically painful for you, so I'm going to work you into that."

She got up and walked over to her desk, and picked up a spiralbound notebook.

"This is your notebook. In the beginning I'm going to have you write stuff down. Stuff that I assign you to write about. I find that with some patients writing things down gives them a sense of privacy and the ability to work at their own pace. There's less pressure that way. Only you and I will ever see this notebook, so it's important that you don't filter what you write. I'm not looking for neatness, spelling, or grammar. I just want you to write."

I accepted the notebook from her.

"Tonight, since you're not going to be awake for very long, your assignment is to simply write down three things that are bothering you. That's it. Simple, isn't it?"

"Just three things that are bothering me?"

"Yup, like I said, we are going to ease into this. It could be anything. 'My big toe itches. Physical therapy is hard.' Stuff like that. I'm not even asking you to elaborate. I just want you to give this a try. Do you think you can do that?"

"Yes," I acquiesced. That didn't seem too hard.

"Good. Our sessions are going to an hour daily at first. I'll evaluate your progress and make adjustments as necessary. I know already you don't like the idea of this, but I'm asking for your cooperation. I'm telling you right up front that your time here will go by much faster and you will heal much easier if you work with me. The mind and the body are intricately connected, and I am going to be as much a part of your recovery as your physical therapists are."

"Okay."

"We're going to do a lot of talking, Jane. And I need to earn your trust, which I can tell is going to be difficult with you. I'm not here to make you miserable, but we're definitely going to talk about some tough subjects together. Throughout all of this, I need you to remember I'm on your side. I'm part of a bigger team that's working with you to rehabilitate you and give you the quality of life you deserve."

"Uh huh," I whispered, already wary of her.

"How was your first night here?" she asked me.

"It was okay. It's nice to not be in a hospital anymore."

"The rooms here are much nicer than they are in a hospital, aren't they?"

"Yeah, way better. It's nice having some privacy too."

"How are your pain levels?"

"Today they're pretty high, but I know it's from the therapy all morning, and from sitting up for so long. I'm still getting used to having a rebuilt pelvis," I replied with a grimace as I shifted in my wheelchair.

"You were on morphine in the hospital?" she asked, looking over my chart.

"Yes, but they stopped it about a week before I came here. I've been fine since the day after I came off of it. Right now I'm on non-narcotic painkillers as needed."

"Have you taken anything today?"

"No, but I do plan to ask for something when I get back to my room. I'm in a lot of pain."

"That's acceptable. One of the things I have to look out for is signs of addiction. I think you're already on the right track, but we're going to keep a close eye on your medications."

"Okay," I replied.

"What about your family? Have they been here to see you?"

"My mother was here yesterday. I told her to stay home today, that it might be a bad day and I would need to rest. She looked like she needed a rest too. I don't think she slept the entire time I was in the coma."

"That was considerate of you."

"She's done so much for me. Not just now, but especially now."

"It sounds like you love her very much."

"I do. I don't know what I would do without her."

"It's important that you let your family come see you often. They need reassurances that you're improving as much as you need reassurances that you're improving. It's okay to not have your mom here today, but you should ask her to come see you this week sometime."

"I will. She wouldn't stay away, even if I told her to, and she'll drag my brothers here whenever she can."

"Good." She smiled at me. "Is there anything you want to ask me about what we'll do here?"

"Um, no. I mean, I can't think of anything right now." I didn't want her to think I was being standoffish. I was still uncomfortable with the idea of speaking with her, talking about my feelings, of all things, but she clearly wasn't the threat I had perceived her to be originally.

"Was that as bad as you were expecting?" she asked me with a smile.

"No, this, you, all of this, was not what I was expecting."

"What were you expecting?" she asked me, curious.

"I dunno. This sounds terrible but when I heard that I was coming to see Dr. Gilfried, I immediately thought of a white-haired lady, with a heavy German accent, asking me to describe my dreams so she could tell me my sex life was lacking, or I had received too much potty training as a child."

She laughed, a genuine, happy laugh. "I don't think 'too much potty training' is an accepted psychological diagnosis. And for the record, Gilfried is my married name. I was Johnson before I got married. I think I traded down as far as my name is concerned, but don't tell my wife that."

I laughed with her, and then sobered suddenly, realizing she had said wife. "You're married to a woman?"

"Is that a problem?" she asked, looking at me calmly, gauging my reaction. It was disconcerting that my every response was being evaluated by this woman.

"No, oh, I'm sorry, please don't think it is. I just realized all of a sudden that you might be the best person for me to talk to. Everything we talk about is confidential, right?"

"Absolutely."

I exhaled. "Good."

She raised an eyebrow at me, but didn't press further. "So, for tomorrow, three things in your notebook that are bothering you. Don't wait until the last minute, do it when you get back to your room. I don't want to hear the excuse that you fell asleep before you worked on it."

"Yes ma'am." I gave a mock salute.

She laughed again, and called the nurse in. "Sara will take you back to your room. Tomorrow I'd like for us to try for the full hour session. Today we did enough."

"Okay," I said, "Thanks."

"See you tomorrow, Jane."

"Bye Doc."

Sara opened the door to Dr. Gilfried's office and wheeled me out.

"How about a bath and then an early dinner and then bed?" she asked as she wheeled me along, seeing how exhausted I was.

"I have homework to do. Maybe bath, homework while I absorb my dinner, and then bed?" I asked.

"Absorb dinner?" she asked laughingly.

"Well, I mean, until I can actually eat something, isn't that what I'm doing through my feeding tube?"

"I guess you're correct, but it sounds a bit weird."

"Believe me, Sara. There hasn't been a moment that hasn't been weird for me since the moment I opened my eyes back in that hospital. All of this seems so surreal."

Sara looked at me, trying to smile.

"When the reality really sets in, that's when it's going to be the hardest. Remember this, Jane. You can only get better from here. Every day, no matter how much you improve, you have to wake up and remember that you can only get better from here."

"Is that your way of telling me the worst is yet to come?"

"No, but I would be lying if I didn't say that there are tough times ahead. Lots of hurdles for you to jump over. Sometimes it's going to take more than one try to get over a hurdle. So every day, wake up and remember that things can only get better from here."

"Right," I said quietly as we reached the room, and she wheeled me into the bathroom.

For the second day in a row I thoroughly enjoyed my bath. The hot water did wonders to relieve the spasms in my muscles and ease the aches in my bones. Sara let me soak for a few extra minutes in the hot water while she got my bed ready and found a rolling bed tray for me to use to write on.

I was glad though, when Sara came back a little later and took me out of the bath. I was a little too relaxed and still had my homework to do.

Once I was settled into the bed, I took out the notebook and stared at the first blank page while Sara hooked my dinner up to my feeding tube.

Three things that were bothering me. So simple.

I held the pen and it felt weird in my hand. I had a hard time gripping it. I remembered having the same problem after my first run in with Charles Hoyt and his scalpels. Maura had helped me then.

Maura. God how I missed her.

_I miss Maura._

I wrote it slowly, trying to keep it neat. That was the first thing that was bothering me. I just needed two more.

I don't know who I am if I can't be a detective.

That was the truth, and that was bothering me, so I put it on the page, my writing progressing painfully slowly.

_My entire body hurts. All the time._

That was truthful too. And that was three things. I put down the pen and closed the notebook. Sara looked up from where she was reading a magazine.

"All done?"

"Yeah, Dr. Gilfried gave me an easy assignment tonight."

"Do you want me to leave the tray there for a little while?"

"Nah, I think I'm going to absorb dinner and then go to sleep."

"You must be pretty tired."

"I am. And everything hurts tonight."

"That's actually a good thing though. You're using muscles you haven't used in a long time. It means you're getting better. I'll go see about your evening meds and then we'll put you to bed. How does that sound?"

"Sounds good to me."

Sara was back a few minutes later with a needle. "It's going to be so great when you can start taking medications orally again. They've got your swallow test scheduled for the day after tomorrow."

"That's good." I said.

Sara tucked me in and I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. Once again I slept straight through the night until the nurse woke me up the next morning.

I woke up in pain, sore from head to toe. Derrick took note of it but told me we'd have to work through it. "We have a lot of ground to cover," he said.

Derrick was relentless with his exercises, and the pain didn't lessen at all during our session. We didn't talk much; I just listened to his instructions and did the tasks he told me to do to the best of my ability. About an hour before we were set to stop, he told me I could stop.

"You've got a lot of muscle spasms going on. So for the next hour we'll let the massage therapist work some of that out for you. You did well today, Jane."

I was out of breath and sweating, but smiled at him. A massage sounded great. "Thanks."

"Massages are a treat. Don't get used to them." He scowled at me.

"I won't," I said, and he smiled.

"You're a trooper, Jane. Two days down. Keep this up, and you'll be up to aqua therapy and the parallel bars before you know it."

"Aqua therapy?" I asked as he wheeled me to the massage therapy room.

"Yup. Once your tubes are out and we have medical clearance, we're going to teach you how to walk again in a pool. I hope you're not afraid of water?"

"There are very few things I'm afraid of, and water isn't one of them."

"You're a detective, right?" he asked.

"I was."

"You still are."

"I'm not so sure of that," I said, and made sure my tone told him our conversation was over.

The massage I had was not at all like the massage I had at the spa once with Maura, but it was still better than the agonizing exercises I had been doing with Derrick. The therapist used hot towels and even did some acupuncture.

I felt significantly better when Sara came with my wheelchair to take me back to my room for my afternoon feeding treatment. I still slept through it though. I didn't know how I was going to keep up with this schedule when I was actually expected to feed myself instead of being fed through a tube. This midday nap was probably the only thing that kept me going long enough to go to my therapy in the afternoon. As much as I was looking forward to actually eating, I was going to miss this time for a nap.

Sara woke me an hour later and we headed down to Dr. Gilfried's office with my notebook.

She smiled when I was wheeled in, and offered me a cup of ice chips. I took them from her gratefully.

"How are you today?"

"More sore than yesterday. I thought the first day of physical therapy was going to be hard, but today was harder."

She nodded. "You look a bit better today. Not as exhausted as yesterday."

"I feel just as exhausted though."

"Well, maybe I can take your mind off of all of that for a while." She reached her hand out. "Let me see your notebook."

I handed it over to her and watched her smile. "You actually did your homework."

"I did."

"I don't think you're nearly as stubborn as they said you were going to be."

"You don't know me very well yet, doctor." I replied.

"Well, I'm glad you did this."

"Sorry it's not neat. I don't have the best handwriting on a good day. My hands are still getting better and it took me awhile to get my hand to hold the pen."

"This is fine. I'm not looking to correct you, and I will never judge you, or your writing."

I looked at her, waiting.

"I miss Maura. I'm not sure who I am if I can't be a detective. My entire body hurts, all the time."

I nodded.

"Who is Maura?"

"I-."

Where could I start? How could I describe Maura?

"She-". I stopped again, shaking my head.

How could I tell her that Maura was the best thing to ever happen to me, and the person I had loved most in this world?

How could I explain what I did to her and what happened to us?

"Okay. How about we skip that for now and come back to it tomorrow. Why do you not know who you are if you can't be a detective?"

"Because it's all I am. And if I can't do my job, what am I going to do with myself?"

"You're more than just a detective, Jane."

"But I'm not. My work was all I had."

"You told me yesterday that you have a wonderful family. Don't discount them."

"I do have a loving family, but they're not what gives me purpose in life."

"So your career was the only thing in your life that gave you purpose?"

"Yes. No. Maura gave me purpose too."

"Who is Maura?"

And we were back to that question again.

"Maura was- is- she-." I stopped. I looked over at Dr. Gilfried. "I can't do this."

"Yes you can. We'll come back to that question, maybe tomorrow. What was it about your work that made you feel fulfilled?"

"All of it. I know that isn't the answer you're looking for, but I'm not skirting around the question. I loved my job. I loved the people I worked with. I loved the fact that I was doing something good. I loved the satisfaction of closing a case. I loved the danger and the badassness of it all."

"Badassness?"

"That's a word."

"Maybe." She smirked. "Don't you think it's possible to find badassness elsewhere?"

"No. Not like this."

"I think there are a number of disabled people who would vehemently disagree with you there."

"I can't be badass if I can't tackle a perp."

"Why can't you be badass if you can't tackle a perp? Is it not possible to find something else to be really good at?"

"But I don't want to find something else. I want to be a detective. I want to be a homicide detective."

"What if you can't be?"

"Then I don't want to be anything at all."

"Jane." She looked at me sternly.

"It's true. That was my entire life."

"You had no other interests outside of work?"

"No."

"Nothing? No hobbies? No activities?"

"I played softball on the precinct league when I lived in Boston. And I love the Celtics and the Red Sox."

"And?"

"And?" I asked her back. "I worked seven days a week most weeks. I didn't have a lot of free time."

"Well now that you have a bit of free time, what would you like to do?"

"Get better and go back to work."

"I'm not saying that what you want won't be possible, but what if you can't go back? What interests you?"

"Nothing."

"Jane," she said again.

"You really don't understand, doctor. If I can't be a homicide detective, then I don't have a life worth living."

She shook her head. "Jane, we're going to have to work on this. We have to open you up to new ideas and new possibilities. Life is not over because you might not be able to go back to police work."

"Yes it is. For me it is."

"I was wrong before. You're just as stubborn as they said you were going to be."

"Who are they?" I demanded. "Who has been talking to you about me?"

"Your physical therapists, and I met with your family before your arrival. We discussed treatment options and asked about you to get a better idea of who you are so we could tailor your treatments to your personality and needs. The first thing everyone we spoke to said about you is that you're stubborn. They were not lying."

"Yeah, well, fuck them then."

"Jane."

I refused to look at her, so she said my name again, a bit harsher this time. "Jane."

I looked up at her.

"Really? They were looking out for your best interests. They were helping you. Why would you say that about them?"

"Because none of them have ever been in my shoes. None of them know what I've been through. None of them know how big of a loss this is to me. You sit there and you think that I'm being difficult. I'm not being difficult. I'm being truthful. Police work was my entire life."

"Sometimes life changes, Jane. And sometimes it changes in a way that we don't want it to."

"I know."

She looked at her watch. We were about a half an hour into our session. "For the next thirty minutes I want you to write in your notebook. I want to know who Maura is."

"I don't feel like writing."

"I don't care what you feel like doing, Jane. I will not tolerate that attitude. Do you understand?" She plunked the notebook and a pen down on my lap and pushed my chair to the other side of her desk. "Write."

She sat down on the other side of her desk and started making notes on her computer. I felt her eyes on me a few minutes later.

"You're not writing."

"I don't know what to write!"

"Tell me who Maura is. It's not as difficult as it seems."

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**A/N:** More soon. Maybe even sooner than Sunday if I can swing it and you're nice to me and leave me lots and lots of nice reviews. (Just kidding about that last part, but maybe not about the first). Thanks for reading, folks. It means a lot to me.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Thanks to my CharlietheCAG, I was able to get this chapter edited and posted earlier than my usual Wednesday/Sunday schedule. I still hope to post the next chapter on Sunday. Thank you to all of you for the fantastic reviews, the PMs and the follows/favorites. I can't tell you how happy you've all made me!

* * *

_"Tell me who Maura is. It's not as difficult as it seems." _Dr. Gilfried was relentless. There was no way I was getting out of this.

I picked up the pen and uncapped it. I looked at the blank page. I felt like it was mocking me. My mind spun as I tried to think of what to write. I felt like writing about Maura was like sharing some secret treasure. Sharing my memories of her and my feelings about her felt like I was giving her away- and those memories and feelings were all I had left of her. I felt like Maura was none of Dr. Gilfried's business.

I could feel Dr. Gilfried's stare though, so I finally started to write.

_Maura Isles is the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She is a graduate of Boston Cambridge University and a world-renowned pathologist. She is a certified, MENSA-level genius. She has a turtle-_ I scratched that out.

_She has a tortoise named Bass._

It took me forever just to write that one paragraph. I had most of the mobility back in my hands but fine motor skills, such as writing, were still a bit daunting for me, especially if I tried to keep my writing neat- something that had always been an issue for me.

I sat there and looked at the paper. I'd answered the question, hadn't I? Wasn't that Maura in a nutshell?

Except that wasn't. That wasn't all of Maura. It didn't even come close.

_I miss her_. I wrote on the next line. I paused to massage my palm, and to give myself time to think.

Dr. Gilfried saw me stop. "Let me see."

She took the notebook from me and read the few lines I'd written.

"Tell me more." She handed the book back to me.

"What do you want to know?" I asked.

"Everything."

I sighed.

_She loves fashion and shoes. She wears couture and high heels to crime scenes._

_She's beautiful._

I stopped to think.

_She's generous and sweet and kind._

_She's awkward._

_She's the smartest person I've ever met._

I stopped again. Put the pen down to give my hand a rest. I started to rub my palm.

"Are you done?" Dr. Gilfried asked me.

"No. Yes. I guess. I don't know what to write."

"Let me see." She took the notebook from me again and looked it over. "I think we're done for the day. Tomorrow we're going to talk about Maura. I don't want to hear that you don't want to, or that you can't. I'm giving you fair warning that we're going to talk about her tomorrow."

I exhaled and looked at her.

"Have a good night, Jane." She dismissed me, and I felt like I had let her down somehow. She picked up the phone and had Sara come back to get me.

"How'd it go today?" She asked me as she steered me to my room.

"It sucked." I said sullenly.

"Okay then." She said as we arrived and she started drawing me a bath. After a minute she said, "Your mother is coming tonight."

"Great, just what I need."

"Jane." Sara said sternly. "She's your mother. She's been worried sick about you for months now. Whatever happened today, you can't blame her for it. She's excited to see you."

I grunted.

She put me in the tub and stepped out to let me wash in private. The hot water was definitely soothing, and I started to calm down a bit. It would be nice to see my mother, I decided. I wouldn't have to think about anything that Dr. Gilfried and I talked about. I wouldn't have to think about my physical therapy or my aches and pains. Maybe Ma would have some pictures of TJ with her.

Sara came back and let me dress myself, which felt like another small victory. She had to help me get my underwear and my pajama bottoms up because I was stuck in the chair, but otherwise I did it myself and felt good about it.

Sara had just gotten me into the bed and was hooking up my dinner to my feeding tube when my mother walked in. She looked better rested than she had been. Sara gave me a wave and pointed out the door. I waved back at her as she left.

"Hey Ma." I said.

She beamed at me "Your voice is getting stronger!"

"Yeah," I said as I leaned forward to kiss her cheek. "You look better too. Did you get some rest?"

"Yeah, it was nice, sleeping in my own bed again."

"That's good. I'm sorry you had to be away from home for so long."

She shrugged. "I'm just glad you're awake. You look much better!"

"Thanks," I said. "I'm exhausted though."

"I bet you are. I won't stay long. I just wanted to come by and see you."

"I'm glad you're here."

"It's so good to talk to you. I missed talking to you. Even before your accident. I missed you, Janie."

"I missed you too, Ma. I'm sorry."

She nodded. "I think you need to tell Maura you're sorry, and thank her for everything she's been doing for you."

"I know. I just... I don't know if I'm ready to face her yet."

"Why not? She's your best friend."

"She was my best friend, Ma. _Was._"

"Janie, she never stopped being your best friend."

"Yes, she did Ma. She did stop being my best friend."

"No, you stopped being hers when you ran off to New York like that."

"I ran off to New York like that because she stopped being my best friend!"

"She never stopped, Janie, and you know it. You owe her an apology, and you owe her a great debt of gratitude. You have no idea how much she has done for you."

"I don't want her to see me like this. I will thank her. But I need to start getting better first."

"You need to apologize first, then thank her. And you need to not put it off."

"Can we talk about something else, please?"

"No."

"Then you need to go home, Ma. I'm not ready to see Maura."

My mother huffed and settled into the chair next to my bed. "Fine. Your brothers want to come by next weekend."

"They don't have to. I'm not very entertaining. All I do when I'm not in therapy is sleep."

"They still want to see you."

I shrugged.

"I also found out that I can bring Jo Friday by on the weekend, if I get permission first."

Now that was a visitor I wanted to see. "Really? How is she? Is Korsak still taking care of her?"

"Actually she's great. She's staying with me now. Vince is a little busy with work, and he can't run home to take her out and give her the attention that she needs. She's a good dog though."

"Oh," I said. "Thank you, for that. How is Korsak? And Frost?"

"I haven't seen them."

"You haven't?" I asked, surprised.

"Well I spent two months with you in Hartford, so I haven't seen them."

"Don't they come by for Sunday dinners though?"

"Not since you left, no. We don't do Sunday dinners anymore."

"Oh." I said, disappointed.

"How is work?" I asked.

"I haven't been there since the day we found out about you. Mr. Stanley gave my job away. I'm looking for something else."

"He did that? How could he do that? I'm so sorry, Ma!"

She shrugged. "The new person he hired isn't working out too well, Frankie tells me. Maybe if it doesn't work out with her I can get my job back."

"I wouldn't even want you to go back to working for him. I can't believe he gave your job away."

"I didn't expect him to hold it for me. He's not exactly the embodiment of compassion."

"No, he's a felonious asshole." I said.

"Watch your language," Ma replied with a smile.

"What have you been doing for money?" I asked, suddenly worried.

"I've been getting unemployment. And Tommy and Frankie have been helping out. Maura too."

"Does she- are you-" I stopped and took a deep breath. "Do you still live in her guesthouse?"

"Yes, of course. Now that I'm home I'll cook for her most nights and clean the house for her too. She's not making me do that, I just want to be useful."

"How is Maura?" I asked before I could realize I shouldn't be.

"She's fine."

I waited for her to say more, but she didn't. I decided to change the subject.

"Do you have my tortoise too?" I asked.

"Maura has your tortoise. I figured she already knew how to take care of one and she didn't mind keeping it for you."

"Did Korsak give you back my pets because he hates me?" I asked suddenly.

"He doesn't hate you, Jane. Nobody hates you. Everybody was upset with you when you left like you did and because you walked out on Maura right before her wedding, but nobody hates you. Everybody wants you to get back on your feet. No, he gave me your pets because he and Frost are really working a lot of hours and he just couldn't care for them. Really, that's the only reason."

I didn't see any of the usual signs that my mother was lying. Either she'd gotten better at lying to me or she was telling the truth.

"Could you bring Jo Friday with you this weekend?" I asked, yawning.

"We'll see. Are you gonna apologize to Maura?"

"I will, but probably not before this weekend."

"Why not?"

"Because I need to apologize to her in person and I don't want her to see me like this."

"That's a lame excuse, Jane."

"It's the truth, Ma. I don't even like you and Frankie and Tommy seeing me like this."

"You do understand that without her help, you would not be here right now, right? I'm not even talking about in this facility. I'm talking about on this Earth. After they found you they thought your brain damage was going to be so severe that they told us the best thing to do for you was to take you off of life support. But she wouldn't let them."

"She told them over and over again to run more tests. She forced them to do surgery on you. And when we actually, seriously, started to consider pulling the plug on your life support, she got that lawyer to act as your guardian and had a court order to keep the hospital from stopping your life support."

"Why do you think you had a guardian ad litem? I am your next of kin, but she was so afraid of us taking you off of life support that she hired some hotshot lawyer to act as your guardian. So the last thing you need to worry about is what you look like. You need to beg that woman to come in here so you can apologize to her for walking out on her and thank her for saving your life, because that's exactly what she did!"

I couldn't answer my mother because I had started crying.

"I'm sorry that we even thought about pulling the plug, Jane. But in the beginning, the doctors told us that there was nothing they could do. They told us you were suffering, and that you were never going to be the person you were before. They told us you were never even going to wake up again. It was Maura that said you weren't as bad as you looked and that they needed to do more tests."

My mother stood up from the chair and wrapped her arms around me carefully.

"She loves you, Jane. We all do."

By the time I had calmed down, I needed to lie down. My mother lowered the head of the bed so I could recline and covered me with my blanket. She leaned down and kissed me on my forehead.

"Get some rest. I'll come by on Saturday, okay?"

"Okay," I whispered.

Ma left, and I was fast asleep by the time Sara came back.

The following morning a nurse woke me up and helped me to get ready for physical therapy. Derrick was brutal, and I realized that this was how it was going to be every morning for the foreseeable future. I didn't complain though. I could be a master whiner, but Derrick didn't want to hear it and I was apprehensive of aggravating him. He could work me even harder if I pissed him off, I realized.

At noon Sara came and wheeled me back to my room.

"There's a slight change in schedule today," she said. "Instead of therapy with Dr. Gilfried this afternoon, you're going to have your swallow test. After that you're going to have a consult with Dr. Grossberg."

I was secretly thrilled to not have therapy with Dr. Gilfried that day. My mother and I had talked enough about Maura the night before. I was happy to put off the inevitable and not talk about her again today.

Instead of hooking up a bottle of liquid nutrition to my feeding tube, Sara cleaned me up a bit and took a look at my feeding tube.

"I'd say that tube is about ready to come out. You're doing really well, Jane."

"Thanks," I said quietly as Sara wheeled me toward the elevator.

We arrived down on the third floor and went into an examination room that contained x-ray equipment. There was a therapist waiting for me, who explained how she was going to do the swallow test. She had some foods there with her of different consistencies and she had mixed them with barium. I would take some of the food and swallow it, and the fluoroscope would record the food going down. If my muscles worked correctly, I would be given the approval to start on blended foods, and work my way into solid foods within a week.

Barium, it turns out, tastes awful. Even when flavored and added to food. The first bite I took of the first food tripped my gag reflex.

"Oh god, I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't worry, that's actually good. It means your gag reflex is working. That's important. Can you try again, please? I know it's unpleasant."

I waited a moment for the need to gag to lessen, and put another spoonful of the mushy food in my mouth. This time I swallowed it and it went down. It was painful, but not nearly as painful as it had been to talk and swallow earlier in the week.

"That's great, Jane. Can you do that for me with the other two foods, please?" the technician asked.

I took a spoonful of a slightly thicker substance and swallowed it. It too went down painfully but without difficulty. The third type of food required me to chew it a bit, and I did, and also swallowed it. It hurt more than anything else, but I got it down.

"That's fantastic, Jane. I'm going to have the fluoroscopy put on disk and sent to Dr. Grossberg. I wouldn't be surprised if she let you start on blended foods this weekend!"

I smiled. As long as there was no barium in my food, I'd be a happy camper.

While I was down there I had a few other x-rays taken to check the positioning of my hardware and to look at the positioning of my feeding tube.

I waited with Sara downstairs for almost an hour before we were summoned into Dr. Grossberg's office.

Dr. Grossberg was a short, thin woman who had an abundance of energy. She rarely sat still. I had to follow her around the room with my eyes the entire time.

Dr. Grossberg had lots of good news for me. My femur fractures were all well on their way to healing. My ankles had healed and were doing well. The hardware in my legs and pelvis were all still aligned and where they needed to be, and my pelvic fractures were also healing well. My hip hardware was in place and functioning as it should. My patella was also aligned properly.

My swallow test had gone very well and I could start on blended foods the next day. They were in the process of contacting Massachusetts General Hospital to set up the removal of my feeding tube, and it would likely take place the following Tuesday. I would stay in the hospital from Tuesday until Wednesday if everything went well, then return to the rehab Wednesday night.

I felt as excited as Dr. Grossberg looked.

For the time being, my therapy schedules would remain the same. I would have to take Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off from therapy, as I would need time to recover from my outpatient surgery, but otherwise things would stay the same. I would see Dr. Grossberg again the following Friday.

Sara wheeled me back upstairs and got me settled in bed as she hooked up my feeding tube.

"Just think, this afternoon and tonight are the last two times you'll have to absorb your meals." She grinned.

"I'm pretty excited," I said.

"Blended foods are kind of dull, but at least they're food. They'll probably start you out with some baby food, and then within a week start you on regular solid foods.

I scrunched up my nose at the idea of eating baby food.

"It's not that bad, baby food. It's just pureed real food. It's way better than that stuff." She pointed at the bottle hanging from the hook next to my bed. "Plus, you'll probably be able to start taking your medications orally by the end of next week, which means fewer needles."

"That is good." I agreed.

After lunch Sara helped me get into the bath. Later, when I was done, she asked me what I wanted to do. It was weird having the afternoon free. I was still pretty exhausted, so we decided to watch a movie on the television. I wound up falling asleep halfway through.

She woke me back up later to do my evening meds and give me my last liquid feeding. The night nurse had found a container of applesauce and brought it in for me.

"I know they said to wait until tomorrow, but I thought you might enjoy this tonight." She winked at Sara and me.

I eagerly took the container from her and dug in.

"Just go slowly," Sara said as I practically inhaled the first spoonful.

I did slow down, but just barely. Applesauce had never tasted so good. I was slightly disappointed when I got to the end of the container so quickly.

Sara got me comfortable in bed after dinner and told me that she was off for the weekend, but my mother and brothers would be in to visit. She left the television remote and the newspaper she had been reading on the table next to my bed.

I watched TV for a little while, but nothing really kept my interest. When the night nurse came in, I asked her to let me brush my teeth and use the toilet. She helped me into pajamas, and I went to bed at around seven-thirty that night. It was later than I had been staying up since I got there, but it still felt pathetic. I laughed at the thought that there was a time when I would be able to stay awake for days on end while working a case. Now I was lucky if I could go eight hours without needing a nap.

I really was just a shadow of my former self, I thought sadly, as I drifted off to sleep.

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**A/N:** see? Maura's here even if she's not physically here. Can you believe they were considering pulling the plug on Jane? Tell me what you think in the reviews. :)


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** The response to this story never fails to make me grin. Thank you to all of you reading this. I'm amazed at the responses I've gotten. You're all amazing people for reading and leaving me feedback. I really appreciate it!

Even my super-awesome-terrific beta, CharlietheCAG can't wait for Maura to show up. Me too, really. But enjoy this buildup. It's important. It's what makes this story what it is. This story can't be rushed, and it's a LONG story. I'm just as excited as CharlietheCAG and the rest of you are though. Jane and Maura's reunion in this story is one of the most favorite things I've ever written. We're only a few chapters away from their reunion at this point. :)

Anyway, today's chapter:

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The morning nurse explained to me that weekends at the rehab were different than during the week. There was less staff on hand, so we did shorter hours of therapy in the morning and then were free to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the day. They had all sorts of group activities, like crafts, bingo, movies, and board games. None of that really held any interest for me. I didn't feel like socializing, but I also didn't feel like sitting alone in my room all day once I got back from physical therapy. Sara was off on weekends so I couldn't even talk to her.

Instead, after the nurse brought me back from physical therapy, I asked her to let me take a bath, which she set up for me and helped me to get into. She let me be for a little while and I enjoyed soaking in the hot water. I was so sore most of the time that I had constant muscle spasms. The hot baths helped to calm them.

When the nurse came back she helped me get dressed and asked if I wanted to sit in the chair by the window for a little while. I thought that was a great idea. She got me situated and opened the shades for me. I hadn't realized I had a small balcony outside of my room. If I was still at the rehab in the spring, it would be nice to sit out there in the evening. I just hoped I wouldn't still be there when spring came along.

I was sitting at the window when the nurse brought my lunch by. My stomach growled in anticipation. For lunch I had pureed beef stew, applesauce and orange sorbet. It was some of the most pathetic looking food in the world, but I ate it with gusto. I got full quickly, and the nurse told me to stop when I was full so I wouldn't make myself sick. I was happy that I ate as much as I had when I got full. I needed to put on some weight.

After the nurse came back and took my lunch tray, she offered to bring me down to arts and crafts in the activity room.

I really didn't want to go.

The idea of arts and crafts in general made me cringe, but the idea of socializing with other people while doing arts and crafts was even worse to me.

"It would do you good to get out of this room for a while, Jane," the nurse encouraged. "If anything, it will help you to pass the time a bit. And using your hands will help improve your fine motor skills."

I looked around the room and sighed. There was absolutely nothing there for me to do. No one to talk to, nothing to read, and nothing on the television at the moment that I would enjoy watching.

"Try it, Ms. Rizzoli. If you don't like it, one of us will bring you right back here."

"Fine." I said, and the nurse looked delighted. I didn't really have much of a choice. It was either sit in the room alone and be miserable, or go sit in the arts and crafts room and be miserable. At least if I went into the arts and crafts room, I could occupy my time with something. It seemed like the lesser of two miseries at that point.

She wheeled me down to the activities room and there were four other people there, each spread out at their own table. I got the last table to myself, and I hoped that no one else would join us, so I wouldn't have to socialize. The nurse left me and the volunteer in the room greeted me cheerfully.

"Hi! You're new! What's your name?"

"Jane," I replied dully.

"Welcome, Jane. This weekend we've got painting and popsicle stick crafts. We're focusing on fine motor skills. What would you like to work on?"

I wanted to answer her with "neither", but I also didn't want to be rude, so I asked to paint. She gave me a small canvas, a brush, and a set of cheap watercolors to use, then let me be. I sat and thought about what I wanted to paint for a little while, first thinking of trying to paint Maura. After all, I had her every feature memorized. The more I thought about it though, the weirder that idea seemed. First, my painting skills would never do her justice. Second, it might seem a bit pathetic and even a bit like a stalker if I did that. Instead, I settled on painting a gun and badge.

Considering my injuries and that I'd never painted before, the painting I came up with on the tiny canvass wasn't too bad. I almost felt a bit like Maura as I looked at my handiwork and analyzed it. The lines weren't perfect, the perspective was a bit off, and the watercolors made the image seemed washed out- a lot like I felt. I thought it was a nice reflection of who I had been, and what I had become. My life had once been bold decisions and proud actions, and now I had been relegated to shaky efforts and bland meals.

The volunteer though, seemed concerned.

"A gun?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

"And a badge. I was a detective."

"Oh, well... that's nice..." She seemed nervous about my artistic subject. "Maybe you should show that to Dr. Gilfried," she encouraged.

"That's all right. I'll just take it back to my room," I said, slightly insulted. Did I look like some kind of gun-toting maniac to this woman? I painted something meaningful to me. I used my hands and put together something that looked reasonably good, and all this woman wanted me to do was show it to my psychologist? I knew this had been a dumb idea.

"Don't you want to try the popsicle stick crafts?" she asked half-heartedly as I wheeled myself toward the door.

"No thanks," I grunted, and made my way slowly back to my room.

A nurse followed me in and helped me into the guest chair. I turned on the television and caught the beginning of the Patriots game. It felt really good to just sit back and relax. I had been sitting up in my wheelchair at arts and crafts and then in the guest chair for well over two hours altogether, and my pelvis was only slightly achy. I wasn't having a hard time keeping myself upright at all.

It was amazing what a week of physical therapy had done for me. I was really looking forward to starting aqua therapy. I missed walking. It seemed like such a simple thing, something I had never thought about before, but I would have done anything at that point to get up and go wander around. I knew I would never take it for granted again.

Right around the end of the first quarter I heard my brothers' voices in the hallway, and something else I didn't think I'd get to hear this weekend. It was the scampering of tiny dog paws on the linoleum. I turned in my seat to see my brothers walking in, and they let go of Jo's leash so she could come running up to me.

I'd never heard Jo yelp like that before, but it was a beautiful sound. She whimpered and yelped and barked and even growled a little, with her tail wagging madly behind her. I had a feeling she was yelling at me for being missing for the last three months, in her own doggie way. She finally calmed down enough to hop up onto the chair with me, and she started to sniff me all over.

"I know baby, I don't smell right, do I?"

She gave me a sharp bark before she went right back to sniffing.

"No, no, stay away from there. That's not for little doggies," I said as she stood up on her hind legs and I pushed her away from the bandage covering where my tracheostomy had been.

"Jo sit," Frankie said.

She obeyed, and sat right on my lap, which unfortunately caused me a great deal of pain.

"Oh, oh ow, Jo, gotta get up, gotta get up!" I whimpered.

Tommy reached in and grabbed her, taking her off my lap.

"Sorry," I gasped. "She stepped on something, maybe where I have a screw or a pin or something?" I said. "Anyway, it hurt."

Tommy leaned down with Jo and let me pet her from where I was standing.

"Hi, by the way," I said to them both.

"Hi Janie," Tommy said, kissing my cheek.

"Hey," Frankie said.

"You got the game on?" Tommy asked.

"Yeah, I'm done with therapy for the day and thought I'd watch the game. You guys wanna stick around and watch with me?"

"Yeah, absolutely," Frankie agreed. "Nice painting," he said, pointing to where I'd propped the tiny canvas up on my nightstand.

"The volunteer suggested I show it to my psychologist, because I painted a gun."

"A gun and a badge," Frankie pointed out.

"I know."

"Don't listen to her, she doesn't know anything," Tommy interjected, waving a hand dismissively.

"Right?" I said. "What a jerk. That's the last time I do any of their stupid crafts. Anyway, go get some chairs, guys. The game is just getting good."

They asked at the nurses' station if they could get two chairs for themselves and soon an aide brought them in. I brought Jo gingerly back onto my lap, closer to my knees this time, and she sat still enough for me to pet her. Her tail didn't stop wagging the entire time.

"I missed you, Jo," I said to her quietly. "Thanks for bringing her up here with you. I didn't think you were going to bring her because Ma said no."

"Yeah, well we figured you could use a nice surprise," Tommy replied.

"Oh, and we asked and the nurse on duty said you could have this." Frankie pulled a small take out cup out from behind his back, along with a plastic spoon.

I grabbed it eagerly. "Is that-"

"A Kelly's coffee frappe? Why yes, it is."

"Oh. My. God." I opened it up and took a spoonful in my mouth, and couldn't believe how good it tasted. "The nurse really said it was okay for me to have this?" I asked with my mouth full.

"Yeah, she even checked it to make sure it was the right consistency."

"Thank you so much. You have no idea how much I've missed coffee. And food. And these frappes!"

"You're welcome. We gotta fatten you up a little, Ma says."

"Just keep bringing me these frappes and I'll weigh 500 pounds in a month."

"Ma can't wait to bring you lasagna. And gnocchi," Tommy said.

"I can't wait until I'm allowed to eat that stuff. Hey, where is Ma?"

"She'll be by tomorrow. She had to help Maura with some stuff today," Tommy said.

Frankie smacked Tommy on the arm.

"Hey!" Tommy winced, reaching for his arm and rubbing it where Frankie had hit him.

"You don't have to smack him every time he brings up Maura. I know she's none of my business anymore. I won't ask. Just stop hitting him, for crying out loud."

"Janie..." Frankie said.

"Nah, it was my bad, Jane. Sorry," Tommy interrupted, giving Frankie a dirty look.

"Looks like the Patriots may make this field goal," I said to change the subject.

We all cheered when they scored, and we sat there in a comfortable silence watching the rest of the game, punctuating it occasionally with cheers and rants about bad calls.

When the game was over, Frankie took Jo Friday downstairs and outside for a quick walk. Tommy stood up and stretched.

"Thanks for coming today. I know you probably have better things to do with your time," I said to him.

"I've missed you, Jane. It was good watching the game with you today." He looked over his shoulder, and made sure Frankie wasn't on his way back yet. "If you wanna know about Maura, I'll tell you," he whispered.

I smiled at him. "There's nothing for me to know, Tommy. I walked away from her. She's a good person and she deserves to be happy. I have to thank her, and I am trying to figure out a way to do that."

"She misses you, you know."

"I miss her too."

"Maybe she'll come see you here."

"Oh no! No, she's not seeing me like this. It's bad enough you and Frankie and Ma have seen me like this. No way."

"You really think it matters to her what you look like? She's been worried about you, too."

"I don't know why she did what she did for me, but I'm grateful to her."

"She loves you, Janie. You know if you were to pick up the phone right now and call her she'd be thrilled to hear from you."

"I can't, Tommy. I just can't."

"Why Jane? You can tell me, you know. I ain't gonna judge you."

"I know you wouldn't Tommy. But I just can't."

"Well, if you ever wanna talk, I'm always here for you."

"Thanks, Brother."

Frankie came back up. "Jo's in the car, so we should get going. Ma will be by tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks for coming. It was good to spend the afternoon with you guys. And thanks for bringing Jo. It was so great to see her."

"I'll try to convince Ma to bring her again tomorrow," Tommy said.

"Thanks. Oh, hey, do you think you could ask Ma to bring me something to read tomorrow? Anything, really. I have nothing here and it's really boring." And I wasn't going back to arts and crafts again, not after that day's experience.

"Yeah, sure." Frankie said.

They both gave me a kiss goodbye and left. I sat there for a little bit, wondering what to do with myself. It occurred to me that it had been a while since a nurse had stuck her head in to check on me. I had to go to the bathroom, and I didn't feel like waiting for someone to show up randomly during their rounds. Sara had been showing me how to transfer from my wheelchair onto the toilet for days now, and now seemed like as good of a time as any to give it a try.

I wheeled myself into the bathroom, which took a lot more effort than I thought it would. I set up the wheelchair next to the toilet like Sara had been showing me and locked the wheels on the chair. I inched my pants and underwear down. Then I reached for the bar on the other side of the toilet and slid myself onto the toilet seat. I did what I needed to do, then I gave myself a silent victory cheer.

I realized that the first person I wanted to call and tell about this was Maura. I was surprised by that. I hadn't had any contact with Maura in almost nine months, so this sudden inclination to share this part of my day with her took me by surprise. Then I realized that not only could I not call her, but it would sound pathetic and weird to be so excited about something so ridiculous and mundane.

No, this was definitely a victory I'd have to keep to myself.

I stayed seated there for a few moments, trying to regroup the strength my sudden sense of disappointment had stolen from me. What had seemed like such a giant victory just a few minutes ago now seemed like an insurmountable feat to do again in reverse.

I started to push off the toilet and back onto the chair. I slid back into the chair with a painful thud, but I'd made it back in. Next I pulled up my pants, getting everything squared away there. Then I put the arm back up on the side of the chair and took the brake off the wheels. Then I started inching myself over to the sink, where I washed my hands and splashed some water on my face. Then I started the trek back into my room.

All in all, it took me almost an hour to go pee. The sad part was that I was glad I'd used up so much time, because I had no idea what to do with myself. I wheeled myself back into the room just as the nurse on duty came in.

"Oh there you are! I thought maybe your brothers had taken you for a stroll," she said.

"Nah, just took a trip to the bathroom. They left after the game was over."

"Wait, you used the bathroom on your own?" she asked incredulously.

"Yup. God that was tiring. Do you think I could get into bed and take a nap?"

"You can't do that!"

"I can't take a nap?"

"No! You can't get in and out of your chair on your own! You could fall! You could reinjure yourself!"

"I had to go, though."

"So you call one of us to come in and help you! Oh goodness, Ms. Rizzoli if you'd fallen, I can't even begin to think of what could have happened. Please, you've only been here a week. Please don't start trying to do things on your own yet."

"But I did it," I said quietly. "I was able to do it on my own."

"And that's a really good thing. But please, please for the sake of your good health and my job, please call one of us to come in and help you until the doctor clears you for that level of independent activity. Please."

"Okay," I said, looking down. I couldn't believe how the nurse was flipping out. It wasn't like I'd tried to do cartwheels down the hallway or something.

"It's time for dinner. I thought it would be nice if you took your dinner in the dining hall with the other residents tonight."

"I'm so tired though, and my pelvis hurts from sitting up for so many hours. Do you think I could just have my dinner in here, and sit in my bed to eat it?"

The nurse scowled at me. "If you had called me in to help you, you would not be tired or sore right now."

"Actually, I was both tired and sore by the time the game ended and my brothers went home. I just made myself more tired and more sore by going to the bathroom on my own."

"Humph."

"Look, I'm sorry that I used the bathroom on my own, okay? Really, I didn't realize it was such a big deal. I'll use the nurse's call button if I have to go again."

"Fine. But I still think you should come have dinner in the dining room. You haven't met anyone else on the floor yet."

"Can I do that tomorrow?"

"I guess so. Come on, I'll help you into your pajamas and into bed. I'll bring your dinner by in a little while."

"Okay. Thanks."

She helped me into bed and pushed the tray on wheels over me.

"I'll be back in a little while with your dinner."

"Thanks," I said.

"Tomorrow you're eating with the rest of the floor, understood?"

"Yes ma'am," I said, and gave a mock salute.

She gave me a funny look, a cross between a scowl and a raised eyebrow, and left. I was fast asleep long before she came back.

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**A/N:** More soon. Until then, leave me some reviews, won't ya? They totally make my day. :)


	9. Chapter 9

Sunday morning I woke up before the nurse came to get me. The clock on the wall said it was five-thirty. I realized what woke me up was my stomach growling. I was hungry. I was also incredibly sore. I thought back to the night before, when I'd sat up for hours with my brothers, watching the game. It had felt so good, so normal, to sit there with them. And they had brought Jo Friday with them, which made the day that much better. The icing on the cake was when I had used the bathroom on my own. Despite the stern talking-to I had gotten from the nurse on duty, and falling asleep before I had eaten dinner, I realized I'd had a really fantastic day the day before. I definitely needed more days like that.

I sat up to wait for the nurse to come in at six to get me ready for therapy. Derrick apparently didn't work on the weekends and the weekend physical therapist was not as brutal as Derrick was. That was a good thing, because I was so sore from sitting up for so long the day before that I honestly didn't think I'd have been able to do a full day of therapy with Derrick.

When the nurse came in, she didn't have a breakfast tray with her. I was really hungry though.

"Let's get you up, dressed, and into the dining room. Breakfast is at eight o'clock."

"No more breakfast in bed?" I asked, hoping she would let me eat alone in my room.

"I'm afraid not. You've got to start eating with everyone else. Besides, it'll do you good to get to know the other people on the floor with you."

"I guess," I said. I really wasn't in the mood to socialize. I was really never in the mood to socialize, even before the accident. I wondered if Dr. Gilfried had asked the nurses to get me out of my room more. I wouldn't put it past her.

"You can't just sit in your room all day, Ms. Rizzoli."

"Why not? I like it in here." That was partially true. There were other places I would rather be, but socializing with a group of strangers wasn't one of those places. I definitely preferred taking my meals in my room all alone to sitting with a bunch of strangers who were all likely as out of sorts as I was.

"Because part of your rehabilitation is getting you to get involved in life again. That means socializing and getting out of your room. You can't hide away in here forever."

I grunted in reply, and she wheeled me into the bathroom so I could get ready for the day. I made sure I really took my time, hoping the nurse would just get frustrated with me and let me stay in my room, but apparently I wasn't the first person to try that tactic with her. She finally grabbed my clothes from me and dressed me herself, giving me a knowing smirk before she pushed me back into my room.

By the time I had gotten bathed, dressed and ready, I was really apprehensive about going to eat in the dining room with everyone else. I didn't know what to expect, and I had never been an outgoing person, so suddenly being thrust into a room with all of these people was a little nerve wracking.

By the time we reached the dining room, there were five other residents already there, all of them eating. The nurse pushed my chair into the spot that was apparently reserved for me, and the woman on my right smiled at me.

"Hi, I'm Barbara," she said.

I stuck my hand out to shake her hand, trying to be polite. "I'm Jane."

I waited there awkwardly for a moment before I realized that Barbara couldn't shake my hand because her right hand was not there.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, blushing.

"No, it's okay. It's what everyone does." She shrugged and took another bite of her breakfast, seemingly unperturbed.

"I'm sorry, I'm just not good at socializing to begin with, and I don't know what I was thinking just now, and I'm sorry... now I'm babbling."

"It's all right, Jane. Don't worry. You didn't realize my hand had been amputated, and I don't take any offense to your gesture."

I exhaled. This was going to be really hard. I wasn't even in the room for thirty seconds and I was beginning to insult people.

A worker came over to put a tray down in front of me, and it gave me a moment to regroup and calm down a little. I tried to remind myself that I used to be able to interrogate murderers without a problem, so making general conversation with a fellow convalescent shouldn't be such a big deal.

"Um, where are you from?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"Boston."

"Me too. Though I had been living in New York before..."

"Before you got hurt?"

"Yeah. It's still hard to even say it out loud."

"I know. But it'll get easier as you start coming to terms with it. It took me a long time to come to terms with my injuries, but now I just realize that life goes on and I shouldn't worry so much about them. You'll get to that point too."

"I hope so." I didn't really think that was possible. I missed my former self too much to take the 'just go with the flow' attitude that Barbara seemed to have.

"What did you do? Before you got hurt, I mean," she asked me, interrupting my thoughts.

"I was a homicide detective. First with the Boston Police Department and then with the New York Police Department for a short while. What about you?"

"Wow, that's terrific! I was an art teacher."

"That's really cool. My friend- I used to know someone whose mother is an art professor. She does gallery openings and stuff too. I went to one once. It was... interesting."

"Yeah, I wasn't really ever into contemporary art and the gallery scene. I taught high school kids how to paint and basically had to police them to make sure they didn't fling paint all over the classroom."

"Sounds like typical high school behavior," I laughed. "So, uh, what's for breakfast?"

"Well, we all have different dietary needs, so everyone gets something different."

"I'm on baby food," I said with a grin.

"I had that for a while too. I'm back on solid food now though." Barbara pushed her scrambled eggs around her dish, frowning at them.

"I'm jealous!" I said with a laugh.

"Don't be, the food's not all that great here," she laughed back.

My breakfast consisted of some sort of pureed apple, banana and peach mixture that, I have to admit, was really good. There was also a large bowl of oatmeal. I had never enjoyed oatmeal before, but I was ravenous and I mixed it with the weird puréed fruit concoction to make it palatable. I also had a banana and a cup of orange juice on my tray, but the acid in the juice burned my throat and I couldn't drink it. I asked one of the workers for some water and she brought me out both a glass of water and a glass of milk. The cold milk was perfect, but maybe it was just because I was starving from not having eaten the night before.

I looked longingly at the buttered toast on Barbara's tray and wished my throat was healed to the point where I could have that for breakfast too. I thought about all the things I had taken for granted before my accident. Things that were such simple pleasures that I had never even given them a second thought. Toast was definitely one of those things.

I tried not to watch Barbara struggle with her left hand. It's clear the right hand that she was missing had been her dominant hand. I was curious to know how she lost her hand, but knew it would be rude to ask. Clearly everyone here at the table had a very personal story that brought them there.

The chair to the other side of me remained empty for the duration of our meal. It turned out I wasn't the only one who was reluctant to come and eat in the dining room. Although eating with Barbara wasn't as bad as I feared it might be, especially after I'd accidentally insulted her when I first arrived, I still wished I was back in my room. I looked around to the other people in the room and my heart broke for each of them.

As we ate, Barbara pointed out some of the other residents. "That's Jamie, over there. He has a spinal injury. He's partially paralyzed from the waist down. Over there, that's Amanda. She's a stroke victim. She has it hard. She's been here awhile and that's as far as she's gotten."

I looked over at her and watched as she struggled to get her fork to her mouth. Her face drooped on one side. She looked to be even younger than me.

"Sam, over there, lost a leg to diabetes. He's probably going home this week. And lastly, that's Christy. She has a traumatic brain injury. She's pretty new here too."

"I heard that there are eight of us on this floor?"

"Yes. Wilma never leaves her room, and George isn't up to eating in the dining hall yet. We were wondering when you were going to join us."

"I'm not a very social person," I admitted.

"That's okay. I am, and I'll make up for it for both of us," Barbara said.

I smiled at her. For someone who had lost a limb, she was in really good spirits. I wondered if she was always like that, or if her injuries had forced her to change her outlook on people. I wondered how much of my personality was ultimately going to change as a result of my injuries.

"Does everyone have the same therapies and stuff?" I asked, trying to keep the conversation light and keep my thoughts at bay.

"We all see physical therapists, occupational therapists, respiratory therapists, speech therapists, and the shrink. It depends on your injury and what your needs are. They stagger the different therapies to accommodate everyone."

"You know a lot about this place." I was impressed with her knowledge. I kept in mind that if I wanted to know about anybody, she was the person to ask.

"I've been here awhile. Got here shortly after Amanda."

"Was it hard for you? When you first arrived here?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's hard for everyone. I had to face the loss of one of my limbs and the idea that I'd never be able to return to teaching."

"I didn't lose a limb, but I'm facing the same thing," I admitted.

"It's terrifying. And so sad," Barbara said, the smile falling from her face for the first time since I'd arrived in the dining room."

"How do you do it?" I asked her. "How do you stay so upbeat?"

"I've been here a long time, Jane. Dr. Gilfried has worked me through a lot of this. She helped me to realize that my entire life didn't revolve around my career. I have a wonderful family that loves me, and that I love very much. I was still on maternity leave when I had my accident, so I hadn't been working at the time. Dr. Gilfried has helped me to realize that I can go home and be a mother to my kids without my hand, and that if things work out well with my prosthetic, I can always try to go back to teaching. Or I can look for a new direction in life."

Barbara shrugged before she continued.

"It hasn't been easy. But things are definitely better now than they were when I first got here."

I nodded. Barbara and I weren't so different after all, it seemed. I wondered if the nurse had seated me next to Barbara purposely, because we had been in such similar situations.

"I hope I can develop the same outlook you have. Right now, it all seems so impossible."

"I was in your shoes, Jane. Trust me when I tell you that you will get better- physically and emotionally. It just takes time."

"Well, time seems to be all I have at the moment, so I guess I should be patient."

"It's hard to be patient. Personally, I can't wait to go home. I hope to go home in two weeks. I miss my kids."

"Do they come to see you here?"

"I try to limit them coming here as much as I can. I don't want them to see me like this, and I don't want them to see the suffering of everyone else here. I'm just waiting for the final adjustments on my prosthetic and some more therapy with the prosthetic when it comes back. It's really awesome. It's the same kind of prosthetic hand they give to troops coming back with amputations. I'm excited to go home and try to go back to normal."

I didn't really know what to say to her. It was great that she was eager to go home, and that she had a prosthetic hand to help her out. I just felt bad that she had to be a mother without a hand, even if she seemed to be doing well.

"How old are your kids?" I asked, figuring that was a safe topic.

"I have a son, named Paul; he'll be a year old in March. I'm glad I'll be home for his first birthday. My daughter is Tiffany, and she's three."

"They must be quite a handful," I said without thinking, and then realized what I had just said.

"Oh god, Barbara, I'm sorry, that's twice now. I'm so sorry."

"Jane, stop that. They are a handful, and that's just a phrase. Look, everyone here is getting used to whatever it is they're dealing with. There's an unspoken agreement here that we all have good intentions and know that none of the other residents are out to be offensive. Nobody makes fun of anybody else. Everyone helps out whenever they can. Nobody gets left out. We all try to be a little less sensitive about our injuries so we can deal with the real world when we step back out into it. It just helps us to all come to terms with our injuries. So I know when you talk to me you mean no harm, and I hope you'll understand the same thing when I speak to you."

"Yeah, absolutely. And I'm sorry, like I said, I was never really good at socializing and my accident threw me for a loop so I'm even more introverted."

"It's all good." Barbara pushed her tray away and stood up. "I have an appointment with the occupational therapist, so I'll see you at lunch."

"I think my mother is coming by, so I might not be here for lunch, but if I am I will look for you."

"Sounds good. Have a good day, Jane."

"Thanks, you too."

Barbara got up to leave, and a few minutes later a nurse came to push my wheelchair down to physical therapy.

I spent the better part of my physical therapy lost in my thoughts. How was it possible for Barbara to be so well adjusted? Could I get to that point too? Had Barbara been less reluctant than I was to embrace therapy with Dr. Gilfried? Was that what Dr. Gilfried had in mind for me, too? For me to accept my disability and find some other purpose in life?

Barbara seemed to have her kids to fall back on. I didn't really have that luxury. I had my mother and my brothers, and I cherished them, but they were not going to become my purpose in life the same way Barbara's kids had become hers.

I couldn't even start a family now, even if I'd wanted one. I couldn't have kids. I didn't even want kids. Not at that point, and certainly not by myself. Kids were definitely not going to become my purpose in life.

At one point Maura could have become that purpose, _my __purpose_, but she too was no longer a possibility for me. I tried to imagine what my life would have been like at that point if I'd just told Maura I loved her before she met William.

Would she really have been as cold and non-responsive as she was the day I left for New York?

My heart told me that no, she wouldn't have been. I tried to figure out why she didn't react to my confession the day I left.

Why hadn't she kissed me back? I didn't know. I just knew that it had hurt. And she had not followed me.

The physical therapist had me switch from floor stretches to a recumbent exercise bicycle, and I tried to not let my thoughts wander too far into Maura territory as I made the switch. Despite myself I imagined her waking up that morning next to William, giving him a kiss, undoubtedly sweet, then heading downstairs to her kitchen to make them both coffee on her fancy, complicated, coffee machine. That thought brought on an overwhelming sensation that I was going to lose my breakfast.

It was moments like those that made me realize just how much I had lost in such a short period of time.

No, I decided. It wasn't going to be possible for me to be as confident and accepting of my injuries as Barbara had become, because I didn't have the same family situation Barbara had to fall back on. I wanted to be a homicide detective, and that was what I was going to have to strive for. There was simply nothing else out there for me, and no one waiting for me to get well and come home to them.

I worked myself harder during physical therapy that morning, straining through each exercise, because there was no way I was going to end up alone and without my career.

That would leave me with nothing, and I had to fight for something.

I still had to be someone.  
I still needed a purpose in life.  
I still needed to make my way back into being a detective.

It was that, or nothing at all.

* * *

**A/N:** As always, thank you, CharlietheCAG, my super ninja-beta. :)


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** A number of readers have expressed frustration at the lack of Maura's presence thus far in the story. I ask you this: are you frustrated that she's not there? Do you wish she'd just show up? Do you crave to know what's going on with her? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you understand what Jane has been feeling **every moment** of this entire story. And that means I've done my job as a writer. ;) Seriously though, Maura has been present in every chapter, if you look hard enough. And I've mentioned in the author's notes several times when to expect her. We're not far off.

* * *

My mother was waiting for me when I got back from physical therapy.

"You're early! I still need to take a bath," I said as the nurse wheeled me in. "And where's Jo?"

"Well it's good to see you too!" my mother said. "Jo's at home. I'll bring her next weekend."

"Ma, it's good to see you. But you're early and I smell like sweat and Tiger Balm. And I miss my dog."

"Go, take a bath, I'll watch some television," Ma said, as she ignored my complaining.

The nurse wheeled me into the bathroom, and I took a bath that was somewhat shorter than the baths that I had been taking. I didn't want my mother to wait for too long, but I also didn't want to skimp out on the soothing warmth that temporarily put a stop to the ever-present muscle spasms in my legs.

When I came back out, my mother had set up a little picnic for the two of us on the rolling bed tray. I sat in my wheelchair and she sat in the guest chair.

"Did you check with the nurses before you brought food?" I asked, not wanting to get my hopes up about the delicious smell coming from the bag on the tray.

"I did. And they said you could have liquids and foods that had a pureed consistency. So I brought you some split pea soup and a fruit smoothie. The doctors want you to put on some weight."

"Split pea soup? Ma, that's so gross."

"It's not gross, and it's the right consistency. Just try it. It's good for you."

I took a spoonful and tried not to wince. "It's good, but it hurts to swallow."

"Well wait for it to cool off a little, silly."

I rolled my eyes at my mother and took a sip of the smoothie. It was definitely soothing to my throat.

"Thanks for bringing me lunch."

"You're welcome. I also brought you some pictures you might like to have in the room with you, so it's not so lonely here. And I brought a couple of magazines. The boys said you were looking for something to read."

"Yeah, it gets pretty dull here on the weekends, apparently."

"You _could_ spend your free time thinking of ways to thank Maura."

"Are we going to get started on that again?"

"What happened between the two of you?"

"She got engaged and forgot she had a best friend."

"She didn't forget, Jane. She just didn't have as much time for you as she did before she met William."

"William replaced me in Maura's life. Completely."

"No, he didn't. He didn't replace you at all."

"I don't want to talk about this."

"Well I do, Jane. She's all but my daughter too. She's spent most of the last year in misery. She doesn't understand what she did wrong. She doesn't understand why you walked out of her life right before her wedding. And I can't help her, because I can't explain why you did what you did either!"

"She knows why."

"No, I'm not sure that she does. She needs you to explain it to her. At the very least Jane, give the woman some closure!"

"She has closure. You don't know the entire story, Ma. And besides, I have enough on my own plate right now; I can't worry about her too."

"I don't know what's become of you, because the Jane that I know, the Jane that I love, and who clearly loved Maura, would have never said that. You used to look out for her. Protect her. Go out of your way to make sure she was happy and safe. Nine months ago you walked out on her- on _all_ of us- and now you say you can't worry about her? What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"What's wrong with me? Do you see me? Do you see what my life has become?"

"You forget that you wouldn't have this life if it wasn't for Maura."

"That's right. If it hadn't been for Maura, I would have never left for New York. I would have never had to come back to Boston to testify. I would have never been on that train. And I would not have ended up without two of the most important things in my life- Maura and my career! So I don't know what kind of life you think I have now, but I wouldn't wish this on anyone."

"You can't seriously blame Maura for doing this to you."

"No, I can't blame her. I can't blame anyone, and that's part of the problem. There's nobody left to blame. One person's fatal mistake cost three hundred people their lives, and left me with nothing. There is _nobody_ left to blame."

"You have a lot more than nothing, Jane. How dare you say that?"

"I have no job, no place to live, no best friend, and I can't walk. I'd say that's pretty close to nothing."

"You're going to get through this, Jane."

"And do what? Sit in a wheelchair for the rest of my life?"

"You're going to learn to walk again!"

"Maybe. Nobody has guaranteed that. You heard the doctor in Hartford. It's not going to be possible for me to return to police work."

"You don't know that."

"I know it every time I go to physical therapy. I know it every time I have to ask a nurse to take me to the bathroom. I know it, because I can't get up and walk away from you and this awful conversation we're having."

"You have to think positive!"

"I can't. Because even if I learn to walk again, I probably won't be fit for duty. What am I going to do, without my job?"

"You'll find something else."

"I DON'T WANT TO FIND SOMETHING ELSE! I am not anything else! I am a homicide detective. What would you do if someone told you it wasn't possible for you to be a mother anymore? What would you do? Would you find something else?"

"That's different, Jane-"

"No, it's not different. It's who you are. It's what your entire world revolves around. It's not different at all. A homicide detective is _who __I __am_. It's what my entire world revolves around. And everyone has been tiptoeing around the fact that I can't be that anymore. Everyone just keeps shoving false hope up my ass and expects me to believe it."

"Jane."

"No, Ma. Stop. You are not helping."

"I don't know what you want me to do, Jane. I'm not giving up on you. I know you can get better. I know you can get through this. That is not false hope. You're the strongest, bravest, person I know."

"I am not strong enough for this."

"Yes you are, Janie. Yes, you are. I'm going to help you to get through this. And your brothers are too. And Maura will too, if you would just let her."

"I don't understand why she has even done all that she has."

"Because she's your best friend, Jane."

"I really wish that were the case, Ma. But she's not. I was replaced. And that hurts just as much as losing my career does. It hurts just as much as all these broken bones do."

"You're wrong about that, and if you'd just let her back into your life, you'd see that."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I just can't, Ma."

"That's not a valid answer, Jane!"

"Because I can't look at her and see the life I left behind. I can't look at her and see what I had with her and what I'm left with now. I can't look at her and remember how much I lost. I can't look at her and see how happy she is without me and how much she doesn't need me anymore. And I don't want her to see me. I don't want her to see this pathetic shell of a person I've become. I don't want her to see how weak I am. I don't want her to see how much I hurt!"

"She's a doctor! Do you think she's going to be shocked by this? She saw you while you were practically on your deathbed after you shot yourself. She saw you again after you were brought to Hartford. Do you honestly think she doesn't know what you look like right now?"

"It doesn't matter! I don't want her to see me like this."

"You're ridiculous," Ma said.

"You're driving me crazy."

"You're a fool."

"You're right, I am."

"What does that mean?"

"Exactly what you said, Ma. I am a fool. Or I was. I was a fool to think I ever stood a chance."

"I don't understand, Jane. You're not making any sense."

"None of this makes sense. I want to lie down."

Ma stopped and looked at me for almost a full minute before she got up. "I'll go get the nurse."

They came back a few minutes later, and the nurse helped me into bed.

"Can I please have something for the muscle spasms and leg cramps? They're out of control."

"Sure. I'll see what the doctor has prescribed for you. I'll be back shortly."

"You should finish your lunch," Ma said quietly.

"I'm not hungry."

"You've got to keep your strength up. Your surgery is on the day after tomorrow."

"It's outpatient surgery. I'll be fine."

"Jane-"

"Listen Ma, why don't you go home? I'm done talking for the day."

"C'mon Jane, don't do this."

"Do what, Ma? Live? 'Cause this is my life now. Never ending cycles of guilt about Maura, despair over my career, and physical pain. You wanna spend a day in my shoes? Oh wait, I can't even put on my own shoes at the moment."

"Jane, please."

"Thanks for lunch. I'm going to sleep as soon as the nurse comes back with my medication."

"Janie, stop shutting me out!"

"Then stop bringing up everything that hurts me! Just lay off!"

"I have a muscle relaxer for you, Ms. Rizzoli," the nurse said as she walked in, unaware of what was going on. "This should help with the spasms."

"Thanks," I muttered as she gave me the injection.

"If you need anything, just use the call button," the nurse said as she left.

"Jane, what do you want me to do?" Ma asked.

"Leave me alone."

"I can't, you're my daughter."

"Then stop hurting me."

"I'm not trying to hurt you-"

"But you are. So do me a favor and leave me alone. I can't deal with this. I can't deal with you."

"I know you don't mean that."

"Yeah, I do."

"I'll come see you tomorrow, before your surgery."

"Don't bother."

"Jane Clementine Rizzoli!"

"Don't even go there, Ma. It's not going to work. I'm going to sleep. At least in my sleep, there's no one nagging me."

"I'll be back tomorrow."

"Whatever."

"I love you, Jane."

"Oh please! Could you stop with the guilt trips? If you can't come here and not talk about Maura, then don't come back. If you can't come here and not make me feel guilty about everything, then don't come back. I'm done with this bullshit."

"You should feel guilty! You hurt her!"

"And I don't need you to remind me of it every chance you get! Do you think I don't think about that every minute of every day? You don't know the half of it, and it's none of your business. Butt out!"

"Maura is my business!"

"Then why don't you go home to her house and go be with her? You've always loved her more than me anyway."

"That's not true Jane!"

"We're done here."

"No we're not!"

"Get out before I call the nurses and have you taken out."

"Jane-"

"Just get out!"

"Fine."

And with that, she left.

It took forever for the muscle relaxer to kick in, and when it did, it didn't help much. I felt exhausted but just as cramped as before. It didn't help matters that I was so tense. It just seemed to make the spasms worse instead of better. Soon the spasms were so intense that I felt like they were going to make my legs snap. I used the nurse call button and was surprised at the speed in which the nurse arrived.

"What's wrong?" she asked, concerned by my call. I never called the nurses in. I always waited for them to come around as they were checking on everyone.

"The muscle spasms are so bad, it hurts so much," I groaned.

"Did the injection I gave you before not help?"

"No, they've gotten worse since then."

"Okay, I'm going to call the house doctor. Please try to relax. He should be up shortly."

The house doctor did come up pretty quickly. He examined me and decided I was dehydrated, so he ordered subcutaneous fluids. He gave me another muscle relaxer and a hefty painkiller. I finally fell asleep after he gave me the painkiller.

I didn't like the fact that I had used a painkiller to escape an emotional pain, but that's really all these muscle spasms were. They were a physical manifestation of an emotional ailment. I added that to my list of things to feel guilty about too, as I drifted off into oblivion.

I wound up sleeping most of the afternoon away. The nurse came by to check on my fluids right before the change of shift at eight o'clock. She hooked a second bag up to the IV pole. I had woken back up again, and the spasms in my legs weren't as bad as they were earlier, but they were still there. The nurse got me up and took me to the bathroom to do my nightly routine, then helped me to change into pajamas. She gave me a second dose of painkillers, and I fell back to sleep pretty quickly.

I didn't sleep well though. My dreams were filled with visions of Maura, most of them of her crying. Her crying on the day I told her I was leaving. Her standing in the hallway outside my apartment crying because I was leaving without saying goodbye. Maura standing there and not reacting to my kiss at all. These visions of Maura played on loop every time I closed my eyes.

I woke up frequently and couldn't find a comfortable position for my body. Several times during the night a nurse came in to check on me and I was wide awake each time. Finally at around three o'clock in the morning, the nurse gave me two Benadryl, the only thing she could give me to help me sleep without getting a prescription from the doctor, and I drifted off to sleep.

When the morning nurse came in to wake me at six for my usual day of therapy, I could barely keep my eyes open.

"I heard you had a bad night."

"Yeah," I said quietly. "I didn't get much sleep. The spasms in my legs got really bad, and then I guess I tensed up and everything else started to hurt."

"The house doctor recommended that you not do physical therapy today. We'll take you down to see Dr. Grossberg in a little while, but for now would you like to sleep awhile longer?"

"That would be good, yes."

"I'll bring your breakfast in at eight."

"I'm not hungry."

"You didn't finish your lunch yesterday and you slept through dinner. Please try to have some breakfast. I'm also going to check and see if they want to run another bag of fluids. If you're not eating you're not getting enough nutrients and you're getting dehydrated. If you stay hydrated you'll have fewer muscle spasms."

A little while later the nurse came back with another bag of fluids to hang on my IV pole, along with a muscle relaxer injection and my breakfast. I made a point to eat a few bites in front of her, just to appease her, but as soon as she left I got back under the covers and fell asleep.

Sara was surprised to find me in the room when she walked in.

"Hey, no therapy today?"

"No, the house doctor said my muscle spasms were too bad. I've been on an IV and muscle relaxers all night. I have to see Dr. Grossberg today."

"Oh that's terrible! It's good to get some rest. You'll need your strength for your surgery tomorrow."

"It's outpatient surgery. I'm sure I'll be fine."

"Don't belittle it, Jane. It's still surgery, and you need to be well for it. You had a bad weekend, huh?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay. Well, let me know when you want me to get you up and bathed. You're probably not going to be able to take a bath for a couple of days after your tubes come out, so you'll want to go in nice and clean."

"I just want to sleep for now."

"All right. I'll wake you up for a bath before you see Dr. Grossberg. I'll check and see what time they've scheduled you."

"Thanks," I said, and I closed my eyes. It didn't take long for me to fall asleep again.

Sara woke me a few hours later.

"I'm sorry Jane. I know you want to sleep, but you need a bath and your appointment with Dr. Grossberg is in a little over an hour."

"Okay," I grunted as she got the chair ready to wheel me into the bathroom.

My legs were not as bad as they were the night before, but I was definitely feeling run down despite all the sleep I had gotten. I felt weak and light-headed too. Sara actually had to help me bathe for the first time since I initially arrived at the rehab. I could tell she was concerned.

"I hope that this is something minor. I would hate for them to have to put off removing your feeding tube."

"Me too," I said.

She got me dressed and wheeled me back down to the third floor where we waited to be called in by Dr. Grossberg.

Thankfully we didn't have to wait as long as we did the last time we were down there.

"I wasn't expecting to see you back until the end of the week. I heard you had a bad night."

"I did. I don't feel all that well today either, although the muscle spasms have calmed down."

"They gave you muscle relaxers and intravenous fluids, right?"

"Yes."

"What has your diet been like? What did you eat yesterday?"

"I actually only had breakfast. It was oatmeal and pureed fruit."

"You didn't eat lunch?"

"No. My mother brought lunch and I had a few bites but we had an argument and I lost my appetite."

"I see. And dinner?"

"I slept through dinner last night."

"What about breakfast this morning?"

"I didn't feel well enough to eat."

"Well, that's the problem. You're dehydrated and not taking in enough calories. You need to gain weight, not lose it. I'm going to draw some blood and run some tests. I think you may have a potassium deficiency as well."

She took a vial of blood and sent us back to the waiting room. A few minutes later she came out and addressed Sara.

"Instead of waiting here for the results, Dr. Gilfried would like to see Jane. Please bring her upstairs. By the time she is done in there, the blood work should be back."

I groaned, and Sara didn't say anything. She just pushed me into the elevator and we headed back upstairs.

Dr. Gilfried was waiting for me. She thanked Sara and closed her office door.

"Hi Jane."

"Hi Doctor," I said warily.

"I heard you had a bad night."

"I had a bad night, yes."

"And did that bad night result from the argument you had with your mother yesterday?"

"The argument didn't help, but the muscle spasms in my legs had started while I was still in physical therapy yesterday."

"Why did you argue with your mother?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Of course you don't. Unfortunately for you, you don't have a choice. So why did you argue with your mother?"

"What do you mean I don't have a choice? I'm an adult, right? I'm able to refuse treatment."

"Until your revocation of guardian ad litem motion makes its way through the courts, I'm afraid not."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No."

"Jesus Christ. I had an argument with my mother. That happens all the time. I really don't need to psychoanalyze it."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"Seriously?"

"Jane, why haven't you eaten since breakfast yesterday?"

"I argued with my mother at lunch and then the muscle spasms got really bad, so I fell asleep before I could finish eating. I slept through dinner. I didn't feel well this morning so I didn't eat any breakfast."

"What was the argument about?"

"Things that are beyond my control."

"Such as?"

"Lately? Everything."

"You need to be more specific."

"No, I don't have to be."

"Do you realize you sound like a cranky toddler?"

"I thought you said you weren't going to judge me."

"I'm not judging you. I'm merely stating a fact. Answer the question. What did you argue about?"

"What difference does it make? The argument is over."

"Have you spoken to your mother since the argument?"

"No."

"Jane, your mother is your support system. You cannot push her away."

"I can, and will, push her away if she continues to bring up Maura all the time!" I snapped.

"So this is about Maura. You got out of your session on Friday, and we were going to talk about Maura then. Let's talk about her now."

"No."

"Jane, the sooner you get this off your chest, the easier things are going to be for you."

"What makes you think that talking about Maura is going to make me feel better?"

"Because of all the things you could have written in your notebook that first night, the first thing you wrote, the first thing that popped into your head before any other thoughts were the words 'I miss Maura'. That bothered you more than your physical pain, which is what nearly every patient writes about first. It even bothered you more than the threat of not being able to return to your career."

"Maura is clearly a source of anxiety for you. She obviously weighs very heavily on you. So let me ask you what I asked you in our last session: Who is Maura?"

"I told you in my notebook. She's the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

"Who is she to you, Jane?"

"She was my best friend."

"Was?"

"Yes, she was my best friend. And... And I loved her."

"Is she deceased?"

"Oh god, no, she's fine. She's not dead. Thank god, she's not dead."

"Then why do you refer to her in the past tense?"

"Because she's not my best friend anymore, and she didn't love me back."

"Don't you think that as your best friend, she loved you?"

"Yes, she loved me as a best friend. But that was it."

"Maybe we need to backtrack a bit. Why aren't you best friends anymore?"

"Because she fell in love and replaced me."

"How did that make you feel?"

"Do you people actually say that? Really?"

"Stop deflecting and answer the question."

"How do you think that made me feel? It made me feel awful."

"Did you ever talk to her about it?"

"Why would I do that? Maura looked so happy. She was happy. I could never take her happiness from her."

"So what happened?"

"I moved to New York."

"What happened between the two of you?"

"Nothing. I left. Got a job in New York and lived there for six months before I was in the train accident."

"You just picked up and left? Did you say goodbye to her?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Did you even make an effort to keep in touch with her?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I said goodbye. What else was there to say?"

"She was your best friend, and you just walked away from her? Didn't that seem harsh to you?"

"It was necessary. She didn't need me anymore. I doubt she realized I was gone."

"Jane. How can you possibly think that? She was your best friend?"

"Yes."

"And you don't think she missed you? Wondered why you were leaving like that?"

"She was so wrapped up in her world with her fiancé, why would she care?"

"Because she was your best friend."

"But she stopped being my best friend."

"I don't think she did. I think you perceived it that way. Why was her engagement such a source of friction for you?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You are forbidden to use that phrase again with me. Stop being petulant and answer the question."

I just stopped and looked at Dr. Gilfried.

"Jane. Let me ask you a question. You said just now that you loved her, and she didn't love you back. When we first met, after I told you I was married to a woman, you told me that you thought I might be the best person for you to talk to. I suspect you had romantic feelings for Maura. Am I wrong in my suspicion?"

"No."

"Did she not return those feelings?"

"I didn't get to tell her until right before I left for New York. And she didn't even react, so clearly she didn't feel the same way."

"Why do you assume that?"

"Well, if she felt the same way, wouldn't she have said something? Why would she just stand there?"

"There could have been many reasons for that."

"She was marrying someone else. I already had my answer."

"Why did you wait so long to tell her?"

"I ask myself that question _every_ day."

"Were you afraid to tell her?" Dr. Gilfried asked.

I hated to admit to anyone that I was ever afraid of anything. But one thing I knew more than anything else was that I had feared rejection from Maura more than anything.

I took a deep breath.

"Yes. I was afraid she would reject me, and I would lose the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Let's backtrack again. When she met her fiancé, did she know of your feelings for her?"

"No."

"When she got engaged, did she know of your feelings for her?"

"No."

"What did you do when she started dating her fiancé? What's his name?"

"William."

"What did you do when she started to date him?"

"I encouraged her. She was so happy. They're really perfect for each other."

"And you never said anything to her at that point?"

"How could I? Even if I'd wanted to, I couldn't say anything. She was so happy. All I ever wanted was for her to be happy. And if she was happy with him, I couldn't say anything and risk ruining that for her."

"So you watched her relationship with William develop, and then they got engaged."

"Yes. She asked me to be her maid of honor, and I helped her to plan her wedding."

"How did that make you feel?"

I tried not to roll my eyes, honestly, but I did anyway. "How do you think it made me feel? I was helping her to marry someone other than me. I was crushed."

"And you're sure she never reciprocated your feelings?"

"I thought for a while that she did. But I never tried to find out."

"What happened when you left?"

"She came to my apartment as I was locking it up for the last time. She had been crying. She wanted to know why I didn't say goodbye, though I thought I'd done exactly that two weeks earlier when I saw her at work and told her I'd given notice and was leaving."

"And then what?"

"She asked me why I was leaving."

"And?"

"And I kissed her, and I told her that I was leaving because I couldn't be trusted to not object when the justice of the peace asked if anyone had just cause for why she and William shouldn't be married."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing. She just stood there."

"Do you think she was just shocked?"

"Maura Isles never gets shocked. She's too proper for that. I'm pretty sure she was disgusted."

"But how could you know? Did you stop to ask her?"

"No, I got in my car and drove to New York."

"Did you ever contact her after that?"

"No."

"Did she ever try to contact you?"

"No."

"Hmm. How long has it been since you've seen each other?"

"Well, she came to Hartford while I was in a coma, and she's been instrumental in getting me set up here, and retaining the guardian ad litem for me. But I haven't seen her since the day I left, and that was back in May of last year."

"Why do you think she's doing all of this for you?"

"I don't know. It could be because my mother considers Maura one of her children, because we were that close, and my mother lives in Maura's guesthouse. I think she's doing it more for my mother than she is for me. My mother does not have the financial resources to do any of this, but Maura does."

"Why do you think that? Why wouldn't she be doing that for you?" Dr. Gilfried asked.

"Why would she? I walked away from her two weeks before her wedding. I kissed her, and she couldn't be bothered to react to it. Why would she do any of this for me? I don't mean anything to her. William showed up in her life and took my place. No, she's doing this for my mother, to help her. She still cares a great deal about my mother."

"I think she still cares a great deal about you, too. I think we're going to invite her in for a little chat."

"WHAT? No. No, she is absolutely not coming here. She is not going to see me like this!"

"Like what?"

"Broken! Weak! Ugly and beat up! No, she's not seeing me like this."

"You said she saw you in Hartford when you first arrived. She's also the Chief Medical Examiner. You don't think she knows what you look like? What you're going through?"

"I don't want her to see me like this. And I don't want to see her, all happy in her new life with her husband. I can't deal with that."

There was a knock on the door and Sara stuck her head in. "Excuse me, Dr. Gilfried. Dr. Grossberg is ready to see Jane again."

"Okay. Jane, we're not done with this conversation. When you come back from Mass Gen, we're going to pick up where we left off."

I groaned.

"Good luck with your surgery tomorrow."

"Thanks," I muttered, and Sara wheeled me back down to the elevator.

* * *

**A/N:** Oh the angst! I needed antacids to write this chapter. Guess what happens in chapter 11? Tell me in the reviews. Reviews are love people, and I crave them. :)

Oh, and as always, special thanks to CharlietheCAG for being my ninja-beta extraordinaire.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** _(From SociallyAwkwardPenguin) _The events that took place at the Boston Marathon weigh heavily upon my heart, and I wanted to tell the people of Boston that my thoughts are with them. I originally thought it would be best to skip posting this week, to allow everyone a chance to start to heal. Ultimately though, I thought it would be better to keep going. Hopefully this chapter will bring everyone some much-needed cheer. My heart goes out to you, Boston. May everyone affected find comfort and solace during these difficult times.

_(From my super-ninja-beta, CharlietheCAG) _This year I started running. Out of necessity, and out of a desire to be good at something. The great thing about running, is that as long as you get out there and try your best, you can never fail at it. Running probably saved my life, and quickly become something that was a part of me. I just do it. If you ask me what I am, among the many things I would tell you about me, one of the first things would probably be "I am a runner."

The senseless acts of violence at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday hit very close to home for me on many levels. The foremost as a runner. Runners are a community, spread out across the globe, regardless of creed or nationality. When you pass another runner on the street, track, or even on the treadmill next to you at the gym, you just know. "Hey, we are family. We are both crazy enough to lace up our sneakers, get out there, and push ourselves to run! We didn't sit on the couch today! Go us!"

My heart goes out to those affected by the events at the Boston Marathon. It will carry major repercussions for many people, for a lifetime. I know I'll carry it with me forever. Thankfully the running community is resilient. For that matter, so is humanity. We manage to persevere time after time. We pick ourselves up and keep going. We must in order to survive. Last night I got out there and I ran. I ran for me. I ran for Boston. I ran to just run. Because life goes on. If you stop it will pass you by. In this tradition I have encouraged my pudgy penguin of a writer to post today's update. Not out of any disrespect to anyone affected by these events, but out of a need to carry on. So to everyone out there, in Boston or anywhere else in the world, keep going. Keep on running. Show everyone how strong you are even when someone else is trying to get you down. "Don't let fatigue make a coward of you."

And now, on to the story:

* * *

It turned out that I did have a potassium deficiency, due in part to poor absorption from my resected bowel and also in part from eating poorly. The deficiency wasn't bad enough to cause heart arrhythmia, thankfully, but it was a cause for concern. I got my first IV potassium treatment that afternoon, with the hopes that my pre-op testing for the following day would go as planned. I was also given permission to eat a banana with lunch, and told that if I didn't eat my entire meal, I would not be going in for surgery the next day. All foods had to be stopped by six o'clock that evening, so I would also have to have an early dinner, and I had to eat all of it.

It was pathetic, especially since I don't particularly like bananas, but it was nice to have food that required more than just a symbolic amount of chewing. My throat had healed to the point where swallowing was only mildly painful, almost as if I was getting over a cold. By that point my voice had returned to its naturally gravelly self, instead of outright hoarse. I still didn't look like myself and I didn't feel like myself, but at least I was starting to sound like myself again.

A nutritionist had been assigned to monitor my food intake and make sure I was getting balanced nutrition. It felt like the day the private nurse showed up after I pulled my ventilator tube out in the ICU. Another babysitter to add to the growing list of babysitters. I hadn't purposely been starving myself. Wasn't it normal for people who didn't feel well to stop eating? It was really beginning to irritate me how my every move was monitored and controlled. I couldn't wait to be able to make my own decisions about silly things like whether or not I was hungry enough to eat something, or what I could put in my mouth. TJ probably had more autonomy than I did at that point, and it frustrated me to no end.

I spent the rest of the afternoon holed up in my room at the rehab. Once I ate lunch I started to feel a little better. I wasn't as sore, and I had very few leg cramps. I leafed through the magazines my mother had brought for me. They were mostly news magazines that were a few weeks old. I noticed they had all been sent to Maura.

The name on the address label simply said "Dr. Maura Isles". I noticed the lack of a hyphenated name, and wondered if Maura had decided against changing her name. Or maybe the subscriptions were so old that she just kept her name that way on them. I didn't recall her subscribing to these magazines when I'd been to her house, though. Maura had generally preferred to get her news via the internet or in the evening when she watched television. It was an interesting development. If she hadn't hyphenated her name, I was secretly glad. Maura was too wonderful to have anyone else's name but her own.

I shifted between reading the magazines and watching the television, chatting with Sara occasionally. Sara was professional and kind, and attentive to my every need, but she wasn't my friend, and that's really what I needed more than anything else.

"Is your mother coming tonight?" she asked me about a half hour before she was scheduled to leave.

"I don't think so."

"Oh. I just thought she would come see you before your surgery."

"We argued yesterday, and I told her not to come."

"Is everything okay, Jane? Do you want me to call her and ask her to come?"

"Nah, but thanks. That's nice of you. Tomorrow's not going to be so bad. Not after everything else I've been through. I'm not worried."

"Still, it would be nice if she came to see you, wouldn't it?"

"No, because every time she comes she makes me feel guilty about things. I'd rather the break."

Sara nodded. "I understand. I'm going to go get your dinner and your evening meds. I'll stay tonight until you fall asleep, okay?"

"You don't have to do that."

"I just want to make sure you get a good night's rest. You may think tomorrow is going to be easy, but you're going to need your strength, even for that simple surgery. I won't stay too long."

"Thanks. That's really nice of you. Still, you don't have to stay."

"I want to."

"Let's see how things go after dinner," I said, and smiled at her.

Sara left to go get my dinner and my evening meds. She came back with a tray and I noticed another banana on it, along with some other food.

"I never really liked bananas before. I'm going to be sick of them before long."

"What's your favorite food?" Sara asked, making conversation.

"Cheeseburgers with extra pickles."

"Once you're on normal food, probably next week, you probably won't have these issues with nutrient deficiencies. The nutritionist will adjust your diet as needed. And I'll see what I can do about cheeseburgers for you. I don't think they serve them here."

"Now that is something to look forward to."

I sat there and dutifully ate my dinner. I didn't want them to give them a reason to not remove the feeding tube Wednesday morning.

Sara cleared the tray away when I was finished, and injected my evening meds into the IV I still had running. She wheeled me into the bathroom so I could take care of my nightly routine.

"Let's get you into pajamas and into bed. The night nurse said that you might want a sedative to sleep tonight. She can administer it later, after I leave if you want. Or she can give it to you now and I can wait for you to fall asleep like I said I would."

"I think I will take her up on the sedative, but a little later. For now I just want to relax a little bit. I'm not that tired. I slept most of the day, and I didn't have therapy today, so I'm not exhausted like I usually am. Maybe I'll be able to stay awake until eight or nine tonight."

I said that like it was something to be proud of. Less than a year before that, I was used to working for days at a time when I was on a case. Suddenly I had been thrust into a situation where staying up until nine o'clock at night made me feel like I had accomplished something.

"Sure, do you want me to stay for a little while? Keep you company?"

"Only if you have absolutely nothing better to do, and I bet that you do have better things to do."

Sara looked at me and tried to figure out where I was coming from. "I just don't want you to be all alone the night before your surgery."

"I'm used to being alone, Sara. And I'm not scared of the surgery. So why not go home, and enjoy your night? And tomorrow and Wednesday I'll be at the hospital so I'm guessing this is going to be like a little vacation for you. Why not go enjoy it?"

"Are you sure?"

"It's really, really nice of you to offer to stay, but it's okay. Thank you though." I smiled at her, to reassure her.

"All right then." She said as she put me back into bed. She left the television remote and the pile of magazines next to the bed for me.

"Good luck tomorrow and Wednesday, Jane. I hope there are no problems with your preoperative testing, and I hope the surgery goes smoothly. I'll see you on Friday."

"Thanks Sara. Enjoy your days off."

"I will. I'll let the night nurse know about the sedative on my way out, okay?"

"Sure, thanks."

She left, and I flipped on the television. I settled on some sitcom I'd seen a hundred times before and pulled out the stack of magazines, suddenly curious about what world events I had missed while I'd been in a coma. A manilla envelope fell out from between two of the magazines, and I realized it was the photos my mother had mentioned she brought the day before. I slowly opened up the envelope.

There were at least twenty pictures in the envelope, most of them printed on a color inkjet printer, as if they were blown up copies of scanned photos or digital prints.

The first picture in the pile was a picture of my brothers and I, along with my mother, three years before, as we stood in Maura's dining room before Christmas dinner. Everyone was all full of smiles. I had a hard time looking at myself in that photo. I wasn't that person anymore, and it hurt to realize it. That had been the last Christmas before William had shown up. I wish I would have known then what life was going to be like for me in the years to come. I probably would have enjoyed that Christmas more. I probably would have told Maura I loved her. Maybe I would have even tried to kiss her under the mistletoe, like I'd been tempted to every year since I'd met her.

The next photo was a picture of Tommy holding TJ. It looked fairly recent. TJ was grinning into the camera, his rambunctiousness shining through his expression. I liked that photo and kept it out of the envelope to put up on the wall near my bed.

There was a picture of Frankie next, in his police uniform. I thought seeing him in uniform would be upsetting to me, but it actually felt rather normal to see him dressed like that, and I relished the feeling. Nothing felt normal anymore, so I grasped at the feeling and I kept that photo out too, to put up on the wall next to my bed.

The next photo was of my mother, smiling at the camera. The photo was taken inside Maura's guesthouse. Based on the circles under my mother's eyes, I guessed this photo was recent too. I was starting to wonder if my mother had Maura do a photo project and then print out the pictures. Maura was the only one of the people in my family that had a printer capable of these photos, if I recalled correctly. Despite my anger at my mother, I kept that photo out as well. The pictures of my mother and brothers would look good near my bed. I could see them every day that way.

There were a couple of pictures of Jo Friday and my tortoise. One of the pictures was of my tortoise next to Bass at Maura's house. Yes, these were definitely very recent pictures. My tortoise hadn't been to Maura's house since Maura had given it to me, and now Maura was taking care of it. Somebody went out of their way to take these picture for the sole purpose of giving them to me.

There was a picture of Frost and one of Korsak, taken in the bullpen. Their desks were piled high with files and random papers. Korsak had empty coffee cups all over his desk. Frost still had his Chogokin doll, though it looked a little lost in the sea of paperwork scattered all over. Both of them looked positively haggard. In the corner of one of the photos I could see my old desk. The computer was gone, and it looked completely unused. I wonder if they'd tossed out my badge. I wouldn't blame them if they did. I regretted leaving it behind. I had wanted to forget the BPD when I left, but now all I wanted to do was remember the good times there, when I had been truly happy and healthy.

There was a picture of Cavanaugh in the cafe, holding a cup of coffee. He had his usual serious expression on in the photo. Just off to the side I could see a woman behind the counter. She must have been who replaced my mother. I felt terrible that she lost her job because of me.

There were another couple of pictures of TJ, some more recent than others. One of the pictures had Lydia holding him. She looked surprisingly responsible in that photo. In the three years since TJ was born, she had gotten a little less flighty about things, but she was still a ditz that photographed well. At least she made TJ a priority, and she and Tommy were doing well trying to raise him responsibly. There had been so much potential for so much to go wrong with that situation at first.

Slowly I made my way to the last two photos in the pile. The second to last photo was an old shot of Maura and me. Someone had snapped it at the Dirty Robber. We were oblivious to the picture taker, and we were looking at each other and grinning like we knew a juicy secret. We looked ridiculously happy. I felt my breath catch in my throat when I saw it. I wondered who had snapped that picture, and what they must have thought of us when they saw how it turned out. We clearly looked like two people deeply in love. Maybe it was just my skewed take on things, but Maura looked as happy with me in that photo as she ever had with William. Maybe she did have feelings for me at one point. Maybe I had just waited too long to let her know I had feelings for her, too. I genuinely hoped that William was making Maura as happy as she was in that photo every single day. Maura didn't deserve anything less.

The last photo was a picture of Maura in her kitchen, holding Jo Friday up for the camera. It too was a very recent photo. The calendar on the wall behind her was from the current month. Maura looked absolutely haunted. The smile she made for the camera looked forced, and it didn't reach her eyes at all. If I didn't know her so well, I would have thought the Maura in that photo was a completely different person from the Maura in the photo before it.

Maybe she didn't like the idea of being part of this photo project for me.

I couldn't blame her if she did. I hadn't exactly done right by her before I left.

I wondered if that was the only reason she looked so sad. The more I looked at her in that picture, the more I wanted to just hug her. I missed hugging Maura. I missed holding her. I missed falling asleep to her breathing. I missed her sweet touches and the tiny sighs she let out when she dozed off next to me on the couch. I missed Maura so much, and I would have given anything to go back to the way we had been before William.

Looking at that photo was making me feel like there was a giant hole in my chest. I almost couldn't breathe. I was desperate to know why she looked so sad in that photo. What had happened to her?

I didn't realize I was crying until a tear fell off my cheek and onto the paper, near the bottom. It quickly diluted the printer ink where it fell. I wiped my eyes quickly and put the photo down on the nightstand. I didn't want to ruin it, even if I didn't know if I could ever look at it again.

"How's it going, Ms. Rizzoli?" the night nurse asked, suddenly appearing in the doorway to my room and startling me. "Are you all right?" She'd noticed I was crying.

"Yeah, I'm okay." My voice gave me away.

"Do you want me to call someone to come sit with you? Your mother maybe?"

"Nah, it's alright. I'm just having a pity party for myself, but the party's over now. I will take that sedative Sara mentioned earlier when you have a chance, please."

"Okay. I'll be back in a few minutes with it. Are you sure you're all right?"

"Thanks, I'm sure."

While the nurse was gone I stacked up the photos once more and placed them on the table next to my bed. When I came back from the hospital in a few days, I'd ask for some tape to put them up on the wall. Maybe I would just put up the photos of Jo Friday and the tortoise for now, since they didn't seem to evoke so many emotions. Or maybe I would put up the photos of my brothers and my mother. Not the ones of Maura though. Especially not the one of her looking so sad, but forcing a smile.

"I'll give you this intravenously, so it will work pretty quickly," the nurse said when she came back, interrupting my thoughts. "Hopefully you'll have a better night tonight than you had last night. Tomorrow morning they'll wake you and put you on the ambulette to Mass Gen. You'll have your pre-operative testing there and then Wednesday morning they'll do the surgery if the testing comes back clear. After a few hours in recovery on Wednesday you'll head back here, to this room. Your clothes and your belongings will be safe."

I hadn't even thought of that. Not that I had much there anyway, and nothing worth stealing for that matter. I didn't think anyone would want my too-big yoga pants or my pile of printed photos. The most valuable thing in the room was probably the magazines that had gone to Maura's house before she gave them to my mother for me to read.

"Thanks," I said, looking around and taking a mental inventory.

"Try to relax, and have a good night," the nurse said.

"Thanks," I said once more, and watched the nurse push the plunger on the needle into the port on the IV. She then hung a new bag of fluids on the IV pole and hooked it up to me.

It took less than a minute for the drugs to make their way through my system. I felt relaxed and peaceful for the first time in weeks. My legs and pelvis didn't hurt, and sleep seemed to be just out of my grasp for the moment. Instead of lying weakly on a hospital bed, I felt like I was floating on a cloud. I almost felt like my normal self again. I almost felt like I could get up from that bed and walk out of that rehab on my own, never to look back. It was a wonderful feeling.

As the nurse walked out of the room, I heard her start to speak, but it didn't sound like she was speaking to me. I was too confused and too ambivalent from the sedative to really care who she was talking to, but I tried to listen.

"Are you here to see Ms. Rizzoli?" the nurse asked the visitor.

I didn't hear the response, but the nurse then said, "I've just given her a sedative, I'm afraid she may already be asleep for the night. You're welcome to sit with her though, if you'd like."

I started dropping off then, the sedative too powerful to overcome my curiosity of who could possibly be there to see me. I let myself fall into oblivion, and my brain just stopped all thoughts. It was then, when I was at my most relaxed, that I started to dream.

_I was still in rehab, tucked comfortably into my bed when Maura got there. She walked up next to the bed and smiled sheepishly down at me, looking me over. I was surrounded by her perfume. She ran a hand slowly down the side of my face, and kissed my forehead, letting her lips linger on my skin. Somehow I knew she was feeling for the warmth there. She stepped back a bit to look at me, running her fingers gently over the bandage on my neck and down my arm to where the IV had been inserted. She tucked the sheet around me, making sure I was covered and warm._

_She seemed to be reassuring herself that I was there, that I was alive._

_I looked up at her._

_"Hey," she whispered. She was quiet, gentle, tentative. Neither one of us really knew what to say, it seemed, but we weren't uncomfortable at all. If anything, we both seemed to be barely able to suppress our happiness at seeing one another._

_"Hey," I whispered back. "I miss you."_

_She smiled at me- a warm, genuine smile that reached her eyes. "I've missed you too. I wanted to come see you before this, but work has kept me from getting here, and... I was afraid. I didn't know what to say to you. There's so much I have to tell you, and so much we need to talk about, but not tonight. You need to sleep. I- I just wanted to make sure I got to see you before your surgery tomorrow. I wanted to make sure you were being taken care of."_

_"You're so sweet, Maura. I love you so much."_

_Tears pooled in Maura's eyes, and started to spill over before she replied to me. "I love you too, Jane."_

_She leaned over and kissed my forehead once more before she sat down on the chair next to the bed and took my hand in hers. I could feel her rubbing her thumb over the back of my hand, where my scar was._

_"Sleep, beautiful girl." She whispered to me._

I don't remember the rest of the dream. Maybe it ended there, or maybe I was just too drugged to recall the rest of it. It was so vivid though, that when I woke up the next morning, I could have sworn that I smelled Maura's perfume.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** So about 5 minutes before I planned to come here and post this chapter, the WiFi went down in the Penguin household. There was panic. And maybe a few tears. And then someone on Twitter suggested that I poke the web router with a stick. I did not do that, but I did restart the router. And then suddenly all was well again in the Penguin household. Penguin is back up and running. Halle-freakin'-leujah. I cannot imagine what would have happened if this chapter didn't get posted. Yikes. ;)

The reaction to chapter 11 was just out of this world! Chapter 11 was by far my favorite one to write, though the next couple of chapters after this one are also some of my favorites. Thank you to everyone who left reviews! I always appreciate them.

Now, let's get Jane's feeding tube removed, shall we? :)

* * *

"You just missed your visitor," the morning nurse said to me as she came in to wake me up. "She just left, not thirty minutes ago. She fell asleep in the visitor chair last night."

"Who? Who was here?" I asked.

"I didn't get her name, I'm sorry."

"Was it my mother?"

"No, she was too young to be your mother. Do you have a sister?"

"No... I don't have a sister." I was genuinely confused until I caught another whiff of Maura's perfume. I grabbed the stack of photos next to my bed and shuffled through them quickly, until I found the photo of Maura holding Jo Friday. "Was it her? This woman?"

The nurse looked at the photo for a moment. "Yes, I believe it was. The night nurse said she showed up last night not long after you had your sedative. She told the nurse on rounds that she just wanted to sit with you for a while. When she fell asleep, the night nurse didn't have the heart to wake her up. She looked so tired."

"Maura. Oh my god."

"Are you all right, Ms. Rizzoli?"

I looked up at the nurse, pointing at the photo again. "You're sure? You're sure that it was this woman that came here and spent the night last night? You're absolutely certain?"

The nurse looked at the photo again. "Yes. I'm sure it was her."

"And she stayed here all night?"

"Yes, she left just before I came in to wake you up. Like I said, maybe a half hour ago."

"Jesus Christ."

"Ms. Rizzoli, what's wrong?"

"It wasn't a dream."

"She did say you stirred a couple of times last night, right after she first got here, but that you weren't fully awake. Maybe that's what you remember, and you thought it was a dream? That happens sometimes when you take a sedative. You were both fast asleep when I came on duty though."

"She was here, and I told her I loved her..."

"That's sweet," the oblivious nurse said as she started undoing my IV and pushed me in my wheelchair into the bathroom. She helped me to take care of business and let me brush my teeth. "The ambulette will be here in about thirty minutes to take you to the hospital. I'll be back then."

She walked out of the room and left me sitting in my wheelchair, replaying the dream in my head over and over and over again. What had brought Maura to the rehab? Why had she come at all, let alone stayed long enough to fall asleep? And did I really have a dream, or did I actually talk to her?

Once the ambulette got there, I didn't have much time to think. I tried not to think. Because if that wasn't a dream, if Maura had in fact been there like the nurse said she had been, then I had told Maura I loved her.

And Maura had told me she loved me too.

Maybe that part had been a dream. Maybe Maura had been there, and I had recognized her subconsciously, but we didn't speak. Maybe I slept through her entire visit. Maybe it really had been a dream.

Something in my gut told me that it wasn't though. It had been very real.

When the ambulette pulled up in front of the ambulance bay at Massachusetts General Hospital, my mother was waiting outside for me.

I groaned. I really, really did not need any kind of aggravation before this surgery. With my luck she would get my blood pressure up so high that they would say I couldn't have my surgery the next day.

"Hi," I said quietly as the medic wheeled me in.

"Hello Jane," my mother said, following next to my wheelchair.

"I didn't expect to see you here."

"You think I'd let my daughter come in for surgery and not be here for it?"

"Well after Sunday-"

"If you don't want me here, I could leave," she interrupted me stiffly. The orderly pushing my wheelchair tried to act as invisible as possible.

"That's not what I was saying. I just didn't think you'd want to see me after we argued like that."

"Of course I want to see you. You're my daughter. I love you even when you're a horrible person."

"Please Ma, let's not do this. I can't be all upset and have preoperative testing."

"Fine then. Are you hungry?"

"I can't have any food before my surgery."

"Oh, right. Sorry."

"I'm sorry too, Ma. Sorry about Sunday."

"Don't tell me you're sorry. Tell Maura."

"I will." Even though I knew at some point I would have to say those words to Maura, and I intended to, my response to my mother was more to placate her and get her off my back.

"Uh huh," Ma said, unconvinced.

For reasons I can't explain, I didn't tell my mother about Maura's visit. I guess I just figured Maura would tell my mother if she wanted her to know. I wasn't sure I wanted it getting back to Maura that I knew she had been there. If Maura had wanted me to know, wouldn't she have stayed until I woke up? Or maybe I just wanted to keep it to myself, to replay the dream over and over in my head, because I wasn't sure if it was real or not. I honestly didn't know. I just kept it to myself, and my mother spent the day in the room next to me, knitting and watching television.

It was awkward and weird. I really had nothing to talk about with my mother. I kept trying to think of something to chat about, something that wasn't related to my injury, wasn't related to Maura, and wasn't related to work, and I had nothing. I guess my mother was either too angry or trying too hard to avoid the same subjects, so we just sat there in silence. I was thankful when a technician would come in to wheel me out to one test or another. It gave me a little time away from her. I hated wanting to get away from her, but I hated feeling uncomfortable around her too. The harder I tried to think of something to say, the less I had to talk about. After a while, I just stopped trying to think of something to talk about. Ma seemed content enough to watch television and knit, and I decided dozing off between tests was a fun enough activity.

When the last test of the day was over and I was wheeled back into the room, I looked over at my mother. She looked like she needed a nap.

"Ma, it was really great of you to come and sit with me today, but you seem so tired. Why don't you go home and rest?"

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No, but I'm giving you the option. I'm okay here. I'd rather know that you were safe at home and getting some rest, than have you sit here with me and be uncomfortable and exhausted."

"I'm not uncomfortable." Ma replied.

"Yes you are. We haven't said more than a dozen words to each other all day. I'm sorry I made you leave on Sunday."

"I'm sorry I pushed you."

"I know what I have to do about Maura without you having to tell me. But you have to let me get ready for that. I have to do it on my terms, in my own time. I realize that you love Maura like she's one of your own kids, and because of that you're defensive of her and her feelings. But I'm your daughter too, and I have a lot of issues I have to come to terms with. I have to accept my injuries. I have to accept the fact that I can't be who I was before this accident anymore. And I have to accept that Maura isn't the friend she once was and can't be who I need her to be, but that she's still there for me when I need her."

"No, that's not what you need to accept, Jane. You are still the same person you always were. You will get better. You will go back to being a detective. And if you'd just talk to Maura, you'd realize how wrong you are about that entire situation."

"Ma, you have to realize that is just not possible. I'm learning to deal with that, and you have to learn to deal with it too. These may be my injuries, but they affect all of us. My life has changed, and my relationships with the people around me are bound to change too."

Ma sighed. "Jane, for once in your life, do you think you could just stop being so stubborn and listen to me?"

"I'm not being stubborn. I'm being truthful."

My mother got up, gathering her knitting and putting it into her bag. "I'm going home because I don't want to argue with you. But I am going to have the last word here. You're wrong, Jane. I believe in you. Your brothers believe in you. Maura believes in you. You can't give up. You'll get better. You will."

I shook my head but didn't say anything. Ma walked over to the bed and stuck her hands out, unsure of whether I'd let her hug me or not. I did hug her, as tightly as I could.

"Thanks for coming today, Ma."

"I'll be here tomorrow, waiting for you to come out of recovery. They won't let me see you in the morning but I'll see you after the surgery for sure. I'll follow the ambulette back to the rehab."

"You don't have to do that, you know. I'm probably going to be really out of it right after I come out of surgery."

"I want to."

"Okay."

"Your brothers send their love and say good luck. Maura does too."

"She didn't really say that." I said.

"No, but I know she would have if I'd seen her this morning."

"Don't put words in her mouth, Ma."

"I'm not, Jane. She asks me about you every day. I know she wants to come and see you, and she's too afraid to ask. Over the weekend I'm going to ask her to come with me."

"Please don't, Ma. I can't see her. Not yet."

I didn't want to tell my mother that Maura had been there the night before. She would have chastised me for not talking to her. I'd been sedated though, and I could not even remember whether we'd actually spoken or if I'd just dreamed our interaction. The nurse confirmed that Maura had been there though, so that much, at least, wasn't imagined.

"Well, maybe I'll leave that up to her," Ma said as she kissed my cheek and walked to the door. "See you tomorrow, Janie."

"Bye Ma," I said, half groaning. What if she did guilt Maura into coming to visit? What would I say to her? How could I say anything to her in front of my mother?

I turned toward the television and tried to relax. There wasn't much I could do about any of this, and there was no point in sitting there worrying about it. Instead I tried to concentrate on the fact that early the next morning my feeding tube was coming out, and that brought me one step closer to normal. One step, out of a million steps, but one step nonetheless.

My surgery was uneventful, and I really don't remember much about it. They woke me up early the next morning and took me down to the ambulatory surgery wing. I found it slightly ironic and particularly cruel that the name of the wing included the word "ambulatory" in it. Would I ever be ambulatory again? I still wasn't even allowed to use the bathroom on my own yet.

It felt like I woke up not fifteen minutes after I'd fallen asleep, which, in my mind, was too short a duration for surgery, but the nurse in the recovery room assured me that they had, in fact, removed my feeding tube. That didn't stop me from asking over and over again. Finally the nurse went to go and get my mother.

"Ma, did they do the surgery?" I asked her wearily.

"Yes baby. They took the tube out."

"But how? I was only asleep for a few minutes."

"You were asleep longer than that, honey."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes, Jane. You don't have a feeding tube anymore."

"I wanna see." I tried to sit up and lift the sheet off of myself to look, but my mother pushed me gently back against the pillows.

"Not now, sweetheart. Just rest and let the anesthesia work its way out of your system."

"Can I keep it?"

"Keep what?"

"The tube!" I answered my mother as the answer to her question should have been obvious. I may have even glared at her.

"I'm pretty sure they threw it away already honey."

"Oh," I said, dejectedly.

"Why would you want to keep it? Why would you want to be reminded of that?"

"Because no one else I know has a feeding tube," I responded, yawning.

"Just go to sleep, Jane," my mother said as she rolled her eyes.

Later on, when my mother would tell me about this conversation, I would have no recollection of it at all. Frankly, I'm glad I didn't keep the tube. That really is one part of my life I'd rather have no souvenirs from. I blame the drugs for the silly request and the attitude I gave my mother.

I don't even remember the trip back to the rehab. I do remember waking up hours later and watching my mother snooze in the chair next to me.

"Ma," I rasped, my throat dry from sleeping so long. My mother didn't stir, so I tried again. "Ma," I said a little louder. She jumped.

"What is it Janie? You need something?" she asked hastily, while she caught her bearings.

"No, Ma. But you should go home. Go sleep in your bed. I'm fine. I'm just sleeping."

"I'll stay a little while longer."

"You don't have to. Please go home and sleep. You've spent enough time sleeping at the side of my hospital beds. You need your rest."

Ma really was exhausted. I could tell it wouldn't take much convincing to get her to go home and go to bed.

"Okay. I'll come see you tomorrow."

"If you want to, that would be fine." I may have been groggy, but even in that state I was afraid her visit the following morning would be just as uncomfortable as her visit to my preoperative testing had been.

"I do want to," she said sincerely. "Rest up, and I'll come by tomorrow morning. I'll bring a deck of cards, we can play Go Fish."

I smiled at her. "It'll be nice to spend the day with you. Thanks for coming today. And yesterday too."

"I'll see you tomorrow, sweetie. I'll see if your brothers can come tomorrow night, too."

"Thanks."

She kissed me on the cheek and then left. I slept the rest of the day away.

It wasn't surprising that since I hadn't done anything but sleep for the last several days that I would wake up in the middle of the night that night, wide awake. What was surprising was the head of honey blond curls that rested on the mattress just to the left of me, balanced on a bent arm. It took me a few seconds to adjust to the darkness in the room to realize that Maura was seated in the guest chair, and was leaning forward onto the bed, so that her head rested on one of her arms. Her free hand rested atop of my own.

She appeared to be fast asleep.

* * *

**A/N:** PS: thank you as always to CharlietheCAG for betaing. :) :)


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** Because this is fanfiction, when I write dialogue, my primary goal is to deliver the dialogue in voices that solidly belong to the character speaking. Although my writing style is unique to me and this story, the characters themselves are completely derived from the show. Their voices and their mannerisms mirror what you would normally see on your TV. For that reason, I often don't describe their mannerisms during the dialogue because if you've seen the show, you probably have your own idea of what they're doing as they're speaking. I ask that you please try to keep this in mind as you're reading.

* * *

I looked up at the clock. It was just after three in the morning. I wondered how long she had been there. She looked so peaceful, sleeping there like that. More than anything, I wanted to touch her. I just wanted to run my hand over her hair, and listen to her breathe.

Instead, I wondered bitterly why her husband would be okay with her sneaking in here two nights in the same week to sleep next to my bed.

Maybe she felt how bitter I had suddenly become. Or maybe I was moving more than I thought I was. Or maybe she just sensed I wasn't sleeping anymore. But a few moments later, she stirred, and lifted her head, looking around. After a moment she seemed to catch her bearings, and she looked up toward me and sat up in the chair, quickly pulling her hand away from where she'd left it resting on top of my own. She looked confused to see me awake.

"Hey," I whispered.

"I, um, I fell asleep."

"I can see that," I said gently and gave her a small smile.

We looked at each other for a moment. Neither of us was sure of what to say. Finally, she spoke again.

"Why are you awake? Do you need something? Do you have pain?"

I wanted to tell her that I needed her, and I had pain that no medicine could fix, but instead I just shook my head. "Nah, I'm okay."

"I should go," she said, standing up and smoothing out her skirt.

Before I realized what I was doing, I reached out and grabbed her hand back. "Please don't. Please stay."

She looked down at my hand on hers, and pursed her lips. I realized I shouldn't be touching her. She belonged to someone else. She had for a while. I dropped my hand back to the bed, and she took a step backward.

An uncomfortable silence stretched between us.

"Were you here the other night?" I asked quietly.

"I was. I came to see you before your surgery."

"I thought I dreamed that," I said wistfully. "Did we talk? Or was that part of the dream?"

She looked at me, gauging her response. "The nurse told me you were sedated. You surprised me when you started talking, but I realized that you were sleep talking."

"Was I?" I asked. "It seemed so real. Like an actual conversation."

"I don't think you realized what you were saying."

"Is this a dream?" I asked suddenly, wondering if my brain could really be that cruel.

She pressed her fingers to my pulse point on my neck and leaned in to look at my pupils. I inhaled sharply at the contact and how near she was to me. "No. You're awake now."

"So, you're really here?" I realized how incoherent I sounded. I just couldn't believe she was there, and we were speaking to one another.

"I am, but I should go." Her response was cold. Clinical.

"Can't you stay a little while?" I asked.

She looked around, then sat back down in the visitors chair, shrugging. "I guess so," she said.

"Thank you, Maura."

"You don't have to thank me for staying."

"Yes I do, but that wasn't what I was thanking you for. Thank you for everything that you've done for me since the train accident. You didn't have to do any of it. Thank you. If I ever get out of here, I'm going to find a way to pay you back for all of it."

She shrugged. I could tell she was trying not to cry. "I don't expect to be repaid."

"Well, considering I may never be able to work again, that's a distinct possibility. But I'm still going to try to repay you."

"I don't want you to repay me," she said, with a bite in her tone.

I flinched, and she noticed. "Thank you for taking care of Ma, too," I said, trying to steer the conversation into more neutral waters.

"You're welcome."

I looked up at her, at a loss for words. She was clearly hurt and angry, as she had every right to be, but yet she was _there_. In the room. A moment ago she had been asleep next to my bed, holding my hand even. I wanted to ask why.

She watched me study her, and I'm sure my expression mirrored every feeling going through my mind at that point. Elation at seeing her. Shock that she was there. Sorrow that I'd missed so much time with her.

"Sorry, I'm just, I wasn't expecting this," she said quickly, making a visible attempt to relax. "I just wanted to stop in, make sure they were taking care of you, and that there were no complications from the surgery. I never expected to fall asleep or to have you know I was here. I'm-" she paused, looking for the right words. "I'm not sure I'm ready to do this. Perhaps this was a mistake. Maybe I should go home."

"I understand," I said sadly. Maybe neither of us was ready for this, and the middle of the night didn't seem like the best time in the world to start a conversation.

"I'm glad you came. But you're right. William is probably waiting for you to get home."

She tilted her head slightly. "William?"

"Yeah, he probably doesn't want you to stay out all night, especially with me. I bet he's waiting up for you."

She shook her head.

"No. He's not."

"He should be," I said simply. What I'd meant was 'If I was your wife, I'd be up waiting for you to get home safely'.

"They didn't say anything about memory loss," she murmured, looking at me and studying my face as if it would give her a reason for how confused I had made her.

"I don't have memory loss. I don't remember the accident that much, but I remember you, Maura. I could never forget you."

"But Jane-" Maura was starting to look as puzzled as I felt.

"I know it seems like I forgot you."

I rushed the words out, afraid she would get up and walk away. I couldn't chase after her if she did.

"I left Boston, and I tried to forget you, because losing you to William hurt so much. I felt replaced, and I was so hurt because I was no longer the most important person in your life. But there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about you. I'm sorry for what I did to you. I'm sorry for leaving right before your wedding. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you on your big day. I'm sorry I wasn't your maid of honor at your dream wedding."

I had started crying. I swiped at my tears before I continued.

"I'm sorry I kissed you and made you disgusted with me. Mostly I'm sorry that I never told you how much you meant to me before William showed up. I'm sorry for everything."

She looked at me and started crying. "Jane, didn't anyone tell you?" She seemed to shrink back into the chair but lean toward me at the same time.

"Tell me what?" I said, confused.

"I didn't marry William."

"What?!"

"No, he broke it off with me. The day you left."

"I don't understand, Maura. He broke off your engagement?"

She nodded, tears falling even faster.

"I'm so sorry. That must have been terrible." It was the truth. There was a time I would have jumped for joy at the news, but seeing Maura like this, jumping for joy was the farthest thing from my mind. Devastated was too light of a term to describe her at that moment, but she was definitely devastated. And angry. And very, very, hurt.

"The afternoon that you were leaving for New York, he and I had a massive argument. He couldn't understand why I was so upset about you leaving. He told me it was good that you were going, because you were supposed to be my maid of honor, and look at what you had done. He had a point, really. Because I was so hurt by your decision to leave, but I was angry too. Angry that you would do that to me. I thought you were my best friend, Jane. Despite that though, I still defended you to him. I _always_ defended you to him, and it made him so mad."

"He said he was happy you were leaving, because he was tired of taking a backseat to you."

She stopped and wiped her eyes, trying to calm herself. "I had no idea what he meant. I thought he and I were happy together, and I had been putting him first. He turned around and told me not to bother going to see you before you left, and I did anyway. He screamed at me that he knew something was going on between us as I walked away from him. He wouldn't even listen to me when I stopped and told him I loved him. He was so jealous of you, Jane, and I had no idea. I had no idea how insecure our friendship made him feel."

"He was furious with me for going over to see you one last time. I was going to beg you to stay. I was hoping I wasn't too late, that you hadn't left yet. I didn't know it at the time, but he followed me to your apartment. He came in through the side entrance, up the back staircase to your floor right when you kissed me. I don't think you even saw him, because your back was to him the entire time. I froze up, Jane. I was so scared of you leaving, and so scared of losing him, and then he saw you kiss me, right after he accused me of having something going on with you. He heard what you said to me, about not being able to stay quiet when justice of the peace asked for objections. You walked away and he grabbed my arm, and he said if I ran after you, I could forget about marrying him."

I looked at her, eyes wide with shock. "Maura, I'm so sorry. I was leaving so you could live happily ever after with him. I never meant to break up your engagement. I swear, I was doing that so the two of you could be happy together. All I've ever wanted is for you to be happy."

"I know that now, and maybe he knows that now, but when I ripped my arm out of his grasp and ran after you, he walked away. By the time I got downstairs and outside, you were already driving around the corner. I yelled after you, but you were gone."

"I'm so sorry, Maura."

"He came back to my house that night and started packing his things. I didn't even try to stop him. He scared me that day. I didn't know who he was. He wasn't the kind, funny guy he was the day I met him. He was jealous and controlling and so, so angry. Your mother actually called Frankie to the house, just to ask him to stand there and make sure William didn't hurt me."

"Jesus. Did he hurt you? Did he lay a hand on you, Maura?"

"No, not at all. Well, not physically. Emotionally he hurt me as much as he could. But he never laid a hand on me after that. He packed a suitcase and left, and about a week later he came by with a truck to get the rest of his things and finish moving out. He told me he was going to come there, and I made sure I wasn't home that day."

"So you've been alone since then? Since the day I left?" I asked, horrified.

"Well, your mother has been there, she's been really wonderful. And Frankie and Tommy stop by a lot. Sometimes I'll watch TJ for Tommy, if he's really in a bind. But now that your mother isn't working and after the... Well, I don't watch him as much anymore."

"After the what, Maura? What happened?"

"I miscarried."

"You were pregnant?!"

"I found out the day you came down to see me in the morgue to tell me you were leaving. That's why I was so excited to see you. You hadn't been down there in months, and I just wanted to share the news with you, so when you showed up, it was perfect... except that it wasn't. You were leaving. I never even got to tell you."

"It was accidental. William and I weren't trying for a baby. We were both totally surprised, but we were thrilled. I was on the pill and was taking it regularly, so when I missed a period I thought maybe it was just due to being on birth control. When I started having morning sickness though, I took a home pregnancy test and it came back positive. I had just gotten the results that morning."

"Maura, I can't believe you've gone through all of this."

"It's nothing compared to what you're going through," she said quietly. "I shouldn't have told you all of this. You have enough on your plate. Now I realize why no one said anything to you."

I reached out and took her hand, and looked at her for permission to hold it. She gave me a weak smile.

"I'm so sorry, Maura. Don't belittle what happened to you. I'm so sorry I wasn't there for it. I'm sorry I was a lousy friend that ran away. I am so sorry for the loss of your baby, Maura."

"Maybe it was better that way anyway. William was going to fight me for custody of the baby once it was born. I miscarried right at the end of my first trimester. They think it was spontaneous abortion due to frequent contact with formaldehyde. The fetus was otherwise healthy, and they could find no other reason for the miscarriage." Maura said flatly.

"Oh Maur. That's terrible. I'm sorry."

"Studies have shown that women who frequently have contact with formaldehyde are prone to spontaneous abortions in their first trimester. Working in the morgue, I knew I was at risk of that, but we use so little formaldehyde that I didn't put much thought into it. I was so close to the end of the first trimester when it happened though, that it took me completely by surprise. I thought I'd made it past that tenuous stage, but apparently, I hadn't."

"I can only imagine what you went through. What you're still going through. I wish I had the words to take all the pain away. I wish I could find a way to give you your happiness back."

"It hasn't been easy for either of us," Maura said gently.

"I can't believe how many lives I've ruined," I said suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if I had just kept my feelings to myself, and never went to New York, you'd be happily married right now. Maybe you wouldn't have lost the baby. Ma would still have a job. And I wouldn't be here, in this bed."

"Jane, you couldn't have known that any of this was going to happen. And I doubt I'd be happily married. William showed his true colors the day you left, and I would not have been happy with him."

"I could have stuck around though. I could have pushed my feelings aside a little longer. I should have toughed it out. I knew all along you didn't have feelings for me. I was a fool to keep letting my hopes get up. If I'd just stopped, it wouldn't have hurt so much when William showed up."

"What makes you think I didn't have feelings for you?" Maura asked suddenly.

"You were marrying William."

"Jane, I had feelings for you for years. I flirted with you, tried to get you to see how much I loved you. You never responded. So when William showed up, he seemed like the perfect solution. At first he was a nice distraction from you. You wouldn't respond to the hints that I dropped, but he did. And I genuinely liked him. So when we started dating, I thought I could manage dating him and having you as my closest friend. You seemed to encourage it, which made me think you didn't want me at all."

"I thought I would marry him, and we'd still be best friends. He satisfied physical needs that you didn't seem willing to satisfy, but you did satisfy my emotional needs. I thought I had found a way to have it all, and then I lost everything."

I shook my head. "You were disgusted when I kissed you."

"I was shocked, and scared. William was right there, watching us. I was engaged to him and planning to marry him within the week. A few minutes before you kissed me, he had accused me of cheating on him with you. Plus, you were leaving, and I was terrified of what my life was going to be like without you in it. The last thing I ever expected you to do at that moment was kiss me. I thought for sure you didn't feel anything for me, and that's why you were okay with me marrying William and why it was so easy for you to pick up and leave like you were. I wasn't disgusted, I was too stunned to move!"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"You should have let them pull the plug on me, Maura."

"WHAT?!" she hissed.

"Knowing that I could have had you, all those years ago, and I could have stayed in Boston, and never been injured... it's too much. It's too big of a loss. You should have pulled the plug on me in Hartford, because I don't want to live with this loss. I can't live with it. I lost you, I lost my career... why bother living at all?"

Maura sucked in her breath sharply. "Why do you think I fought so hard to keep you alive? Do you understand that I had to get a court order forbidding the hospital and your family from taking you off of life support? Do you understand the strings I had to pull in order to do that? I'm not even a relative. I had no say in the matter. I had no legal standing to object to them taking you off of life support. I had to hire experts to testify at an emergency hearing to prove that you were not anywhere near brain dead and that you were likely to make a recovery. Why do you think I did that?"

"And why do you think I hired that private nurse the day after you pulled out your breathing tube? Do you think I'm a _fool_? I _know_ what you were trying to do. Why do you think I did that, Jane?"

"Why do you think I swallowed my pride and asked William's brother to make room for you here in this place? Do you know what the waiting list is like to get in here? After what happened between William and I, what do you think it was like for me to have to approach his brother and beg him for a favor? A favor for you, no less!"

"Why do you think I came here, two nights in the same week, just to watch you sleep? Just to make sure you were still breathing? Why do you think I did all of these things, Jane?"

"I honestly don't know, Maura. I've been asking that question since the day I opened my eyes."

"It's because I _love_ you, you idiot!"


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **Wow. The reaction to the last chapter was just... out of this world! I'm glad so many of you liked it as much as I did. It really was one of my favorite parts to the entire story. Lots of you were concerned that there were still loose ends to be tied up. You're right. The story is _far_ from over. Some more loose ends get tied up in coming chapters, including this one. We've got a long road ahead of us yet. Jane is far from recovered, and she and Maura have a ton of things to work out.

Oh, and having never watched the Gilmore Girls, I had no idea that the last line of the last chapter was a play out of their book. Oops. :) LOL

* * *

_"Why do you think I came here, two nights in the same week, just to watch you sleep? Just to make sure you were still breathing? Why do you think I did all of these things, Jane?"_

_"I honestly don't know, Maura. I've been asking that question since the day I opened my eyes."_

_"It's because I _love_ you, you idiot!"_

_..._

"You can't," I whispered.

"I can't what?" she asked sharply. Despite how much we had spoken in such a short time, and how much ground we had covered, there were moments like that one where Maura had undertones of anger. It wasn't misplaced.

"Love me. I'm too broken. I've hurt too many people."

"Don't tell me who I can and can't love, Jane. You were broken before you were ever injured, and it didn't stop me from loving you. It won't stop me now if you'd just let me."

I sat there in stunned silence. There were so many things to say, each of them vying for the opportunity to come out first, and none of them seemed like the right thing to say.

"Do you, Jane?" she asked me suddenly. "Do you love me?"

"Of course I do. I always have. I never stopped."

"Then why, why did you leave?"

"Because you were so happy, Maura. Anything I could have said to you then would have shattered that happiness. I meant what I said when I left. I wish nothing but happiness for you."

"Why didn't you tell me? Before then, I mean. Before William."

"Why didn't you?" I asked.

"I was afraid you'd run. It was easy to see you were as attracted to me as I was to you, but you were so scared of it. I wanted you so badly, but you didn't seem willing to take that step. Anytime we even came close to moving beyond friendship, you backed away. So when I met William, and we hit it off, I thought I had my solution. It took me all this time to realize I was using him. I gave myself to him physically, but you still had me emotionally. I loved William, but not like I should have. And he knew. Deep down, he always knew that my heart belonged to you."

I wiped my eyes, willing myself to stop crying, but the tears just kept coming. "I wish you would have said something."

"I wish _you_ would have said something," she said in reply to me.

"Why didn't you try to contact me, after I left?"

"I didn't think you wanted to hear from me. And I had so much to work out, so much to deal with. What was I going to say to you? 'Please come back, William left me and I'm having his baby'? How would you have reacted to that?"

"I probably would have been even more hurt by it, honestly. I would have felt like your second choice."

"I know, and I didn't want to make you feel like that. So I didn't call. And for a long time I was really angry with you, Jane. I thought you were selfish and you left just to be spiteful. I know that wasn't rational, and that I could have tried harder to involve you in my life after I met William... but I knew if I was going to make it work with William, I had to let you go."

She hid her face behind her hands, and took in a deep, ragged breath before she wiped stray tears from her eyes and put her hands back on the bed. I wished she would take my hand again, but all she did was continue speaking.

"As the months went by, I realized how stupid I'd been, and how selfish I had been, too. It was hypocritical of me to blame you for walking away, because I'd pushed you away and then never went after you when you finally left."

"I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do, and how to fix things. I missed you so much, Jane. Then I miscarried and the months after that were just... I couldn't function. It got to the point that even after I'd physically recovered, I had to take time off from work again. Getting out of bed was an insurmountable chore. And working on dead people? All it did was remind me of the child that I'd lost. I had to call Dr. Pike in to work on any children's autopsies, and you know I don't even like him handling adults, let alone children."

"Your mother, she was so great, she was there for me the entire time. She wouldn't let me spiral out of control, even though I felt like that was exactly what was going on. She kept telling me to call you, but I couldn't. I didn't know what to say. I didn't think you'd want to hear from me. So I leaned on her, instead. And like the good mother that she is, she let me."

"I took three weeks off from work just to get my act together. It's still hard, and I don't know if I will ever completely recover from miscarrying, but I don't fall apart in the autopsy suite everytime I go to open up a corpse anymore. Two weeks after I went back to work, you were in your accident and your mother left to go be with you."

"Wow." I said, taking a deep breath and trying to process everything Maura had just told me.

"I can't even fathom what you went through."

Maura nodded. "I went through it and I still can't believe it happened to me."

"I know that feeling." I said sarcastically, then cringed, realizing it wasn't the most appropriate thing to say under the circumstances.

She just gave me a sad smile. "Yes, you do know that feeling."

"Ma said you came to Hartford at first." I tried to steer the conversation back to Maura. At that moment, it was all about her.

"I did. I went down with her, and listened as the trauma surgeons told your mother about your injuries. I asked them to let me look over your charts. I knew that what they were telling your mother and brothers was wrong. I tried to get her to understand that what the doctors were saying was not accurate. They felt you'd been too badly hurt, that the head injury was far worse than it really was. They told your mother that you would never wake up, and that you'd been too badly injured to recover."

She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts and stilling the shaking in her hands.

"That trauma surgeon was a lazy moron. He saw brain swelling and decided to give up before even trying simple, medically accepted procedures to reduce the swelling. I tried to get your mother to have them run more tests, and do the surgeries you needed. And she just thought that the trauma surgeon at Hartford was right, that you were too far gone. It's not her fault because she didn't understand. She had the trauma surgeon telling her one thing and me telling her another, and even though she told me she wanted to believe me, she saw you in that bed and she felt the doctor in Hartford was right."

"I left almost as soon as I got there so I could contact Walter Laffler and have him file an emergency motion in court. And then I got the best neurosurgeons in the country to look at your case, and they all agreed that you could survive this. I had one of them do your craniotomy, because I didn't trust that trauma surgeon in Hartford at all."

She looked so angry at the memory. I felt nothing but pride at the way she'd stood up for me and looked out for me, even after everything she had been through.

"There was a hearing two days after you were found, and the courts assigned Walter as your guardian ad litem. After that your mother agreed with me, and said that she wanted them to fix your musculoskeletal injuries. By that point it didn't matter though, because she no longer had any say in the matter. But the delays caused more complications. You had a massive infection from your lacerated bowel, and that was more likely to kill you at that point than your head injury."

"I came back to Hartford after the guardian ad litem hearing to make sure they were doing what they were supposed to for you. Once your mother was on board with everything and they had you stable, I had to come back to Boston. I'd missed so much work already, and..."

"And what, Maur?"

She whimpered at the nickname. "And I didn't think you'd want me there when you finally woke up."

"I hate that you thought that. And I hate that you went through that. I'm so sorry, Maura. There's never been a time that I didn't want you by my side. I probably would have been very resentful of things when I first learned about them, but I would have gotten over it. I would have helped you any way that I could, once I was able to wrap my head around the circumstances. You hurt me too, Maura. But I understand why you did what you did, and I'm sorry that we wound up the way we did. If I could undo all of this, somehow, I would."

"I honestly thought that I was moving on, Jane. We seemed stuck, and I needed more. You didn't seem willing to move beyond a friendship with me. I didn't understand the depth of your feelings, and so I tried to move on. I'm sorry I hurt you. It hurt me, too. I really thought we would have stayed the friends we were, because I really thought that was what you had wanted all along."

"We can't change the past, Maura. I'm just thankful that despite everything, you still saved me."

"You saved me more than once. I was just returning the favor."

"That was a lifetime ago."

"It's not as long ago as it feels, Jane. And even if it was that long ago, it's a favor that gets returned no matter when the opportunity arises."

"I'm not the same person I was when I left, Maura."

"I know." She said solemnly.

"I'm broken, and more than just physically. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what's going to become of me. I'm probably never going to be able to be a detective again. I can't be the badass that saved you. I may never be able to protect you again."

"You're always going to be badass, Jane. That's not something that comes with a detective's badge."

"What am I going to do, Maur?"

"You're going to get better. You're going to start walking again. You're going to get over these injuries, and you're going to try to become a detective again. Frankie gave up a spot in homicide for you. You owe it to him to try and take the spot he asked them to hold for you."

"What if I can't?" I whispered.

"I know you can."

"But really, what if I'm never fit for duty? What if I really can't go back? What do I do then?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"We?" I asked.

"Yes, Jane. _We._ Did you think that I was just going to pour my heart out to you at three o'clock in the morning and then walk away?"

Wow. Sarcastic Maura. I looked at her and grinned. "You're not the same person you were when I left either. Did you just use sarcasm?"

"Stop deflecting. And yes, I've been alone with your mother for so long. Whether you realize it or not, you get a lot of your sarcasm from her, and it's starting to rub off."

"So..." I said.

"So stop with the pity party, Jane. You have the best team money can buy working on getting you back up on your feet. And you have the best team money can't buy behind you to support you emotionally."

She reached over and squeezed my hand. I felt better than I had in months. No, at that moment, I felt better than I felt since the day William had shown up in Maura's life. I felt like I could fly.

"Ma's coming tomorrow, or rather, later today. Do you want to come too? Spend the day?"

"I actually have to work. But I'll try to get out early and have dinner with you. Would you like that?"

"I eat baby food, but yes, I would love it if you'd come and watch me eat it." I said with a smile.

"Not for long, Jane. I bet you're on solid foods by tomorrow night. And then things are going to really get interesting. Aqua therapy, standing, walking... yesterday was the end of your dependence on one of your medical aids. You can only get better from here."

"Sara says the same thing."

"She's a smart woman. There's a reason I hired her."

"Thank you, Maura."

Maura looked at the clock. It was just after five. "I have to go. I need to go home and shower and head into work. You should try to sleep a little more, otherwise your sleep cycle is going to be off."

"What about yours?" I asked.

"I'm used to this," she said, a sad touch to her tone.

"I used to be used to that too," I said, looking down at her hand in mine.

"Enjoy this while it lasts, Jane. I plan on making sure you get called to every one of my crime scenes the second you get back to work. And Frost and Korsak are so exhausted, they're going to have no problem putting you right on the overnight call roster."

"How are they?" I asked, changing the subject and hoping to get Maura to stay a few minutes longer.

"They're tired. They're very overworked right now. But neither has complained because they want you to come back and fill the spot that's been empty since you left."

"Do they really want that?"

"Yes, they do. They miss you too."

"I thought they hated me."

"I'm fairly certain that they did, for a while, because of the way you left and what they perceived that you did to me before my wedding. But not anymore."

I nodded. "It was really nice of Korsak to go get Jo Friday and my tortoise for me. When I get out of here I want to find a nice way to thank him."

"Get better and go back to work, and that'll be all the thanks he needs."

"Everyone keeps saying that Maura, but there's a really big chance I may not be able to do that, and it won't be from a lack of trying."

"I know Jane. But we all refuse to believe it. We know you. We know what you've survived in the past. We know you'll survive this too. Oh, and your tortoise? It's been almost five years since you've had _her_, Jane. She needed a name, so I named her for you."

"She? I always thought it was a male turtle."

"Tortoise. You never took the time to get to know her. She was just some creature in a tank to you, wasn't she? Anyway, she's female and I've named her, so stop using a neuter pronoun when you talk about her."

"What did you name her?"

"Get well, come home, and I'll tell you."

"Home?" I asked. "I don't- I gave up my apartment when I left, and my apartment in New York is gone too." It suddenly dawned on me that I was essentially homeless. I mean, I had a roof over my head, and my mother and both of my brothers would likely open up their homes to me until I could get settled somewhere on my own, but at that moment, I didn't have a home to call my own.

"Home. My house. _Home_, Jane." Maura looked at me like I was the idiot she had called me earlier. She sounded so sure of herself, like she wouldn't let me go anywhere else after I was discharged. Like there was nowhere else I should go.

"I can't stay with you!" I blurted out.

"Why not?" she asked, looking hurt.

"Because it's not right!"

"Why isn't it right?"

"I don't even-, I can't-, Jesus Maura I just can't."

"Why?"

"What about your one guest rule?" I asked, trying to avoid telling her that despite our acknowledgement that we'd both had feelings for one another, I didn't know where I stood with her, and I couldn't take watching her fall in love with someone else again.

"I don't have any guests staying with me. Your mother is family. And so are you. You are my family, and you are coming home to _me_."

"Maura, I-"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, Jane." That seemed to put a stop to any further debate, and any further questions.

She smiled at me as she picked up her coat and purse and walked to the door. "So, dinner tonight?" And just like that, the awkward that had sprung up when I mentioned home had disappeared.

"Uh, yeah." I said, still shocked. "You're... you're really gonna come back?" I blurted out.

"Of course I am, Jane."

Then she gave me a small wave and walked out.

"Aww man." I mumbled after she left. "Dr. Gilfried is going to have a field day with this."

* * *

**A/N:** Special thanks to CharlietheCAG for getting to the beta edits on this chapter despite both of our schedules this weekend. Thank you, Charlie. :)


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: **Woo! The reaction to the last two chapters was terrific! So glad the vast majority of you enjoyed them both. Jane's up for a quiet day of recovery in this chapter.

* * *

My mother showed up just after I'd had breakfast and a bath. I was dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, and sitting up in bed.

"Morning!" my mother chimed brightly.

I smiled at her. "Hey. How are you?" I asked.

"I'm fine. I went home last night and fell right to sleep. How about you?"

"I'm fine too. I thought I'd be in pain today, but I'm really not."

"That's good! Did you have breakfast?"

"I did. I had a banana, oatmeal and a glass of orange juice." I scrunched up my nose, not entirely pleased with the food I'd been served.

"All of your favorites," my mother said sarcastically.

"I know, right? Still, it's good to be able to eat. And I think by tomorrow they're saying I can start on actual real, solid foods that requires chewing."

My mother laughed. "That's great. I'll see if I can bring you in some gnocchi on Sunday if that's the case."

"Oh, I would love that!" My stomach rumbled in agreement.

My mother heard my stomach rumble. "Are you hungry now?" she asked.

"No, I'm pretty full. And I can't eat too much because they said it's actually possible for my stomach to leak through the incision until it heals."

"Oh, that's horrible!" my mother blurted out, clearly disgusted before catching herself. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be insensitive."

"I reacted the same way, so don't worry about it," I said, waving a hand in dismissal.

"You're in a good mood today," my mother astutely observed.

"I am."

"Maura came home very early this morning. She was in a good mood today too. I think she may have a gentleman caller."

I frowned at the thought. It was quite possible that Maura was involved with someone else, but her early morning arrival at home that day didn't have anything to do with a boyfriend, I didn't think. Maura and I hadn't clarified anything about our relationship, other than the fact that we both had feelings for one another before William showed up. She was supposed to come back for dinner that night, but that didn't mean much as far as the status of our relationship was concerned. I didn't want to think about what that could mean for me, or for the "we" she had spoken about earlier, if she was involved with someone else.

"I don't think she was with a man last night," I said, by way of distracting myself.

"Oh, how would you know that?" my mother asked, surprised.

"Because last I checked, I don't have a penis."

"What?! What the heck does that mean?" Ma's face was a combination of shock and confusion.

"She was here last night. I don't know what time she got here because I was asleep. But I woke up around three and she was fast asleep. She woke up, and we talked. For a few hours. She left just after five."

"Really, Janie?" Ma looked so hopeful.

"Yeah, I still can't believe it."

"Did you apologize to her?" my mother asked sternly.

"Yes, I did. And I thanked her, too."

"Really?" Suddenly my mother was beaming.

"Yeah. I had no idea what happened to her. I can't believe how well she's doing now."

"She had it pretty rough for a while, but our Maura, she bounces back. I think now that she's seen you, she's going to do even better."

"I hope so."

"What did you talk about?" Ma noisily inquired.

"Just... stuff."

"Jane."

"Ma, I love you, and I thank you for taking such wonderful care of her, but it's none of your business. We talked, okay? And she's coming back for dinner tonight."

"Oh, is she really?"

"That's what she said."

"Wow."

"I know. I almost can't believe it myself." I dropped my head to hide the huge grin that was spreading across my face. I knew Ma could see it anyway, though. To her credit, she let it go. Maybe for the first and only time in my life, but she let it go, and I was thankful to her. I think Ma was just as elated as I was that Maura and I had spoken.

Ma and I spent the day playing cards, watching television and talking. Ma talked about how sometimes Maura would ask her to leave Jo Friday at her house, so she could "sleep over".

"It's cute, how she adores your pets. She'd never come out and say it, but she loves having a dog in the house," Ma remarked.

I wanted to say that maybe it was because it was_ my_ dog, but I left that out. I didn't know it for sure, and for once I was going to take a page out of Maura's book and not guess.

Before I could say anything else though, Ma went on about how cute it was that Maura was taking care of Bass and my tortoise together. I told Ma that Maura had named my tortoise, and tried to fish the name out of my mother.

"Really, even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you. Maura wants to tell you herself. She told me that she wanted to tell you when she gave you your tortoise back. So let her."

I noticed that Ma had said "when she gives you your tortoise back" and not "when you come home", which led me to believe that Maura hadn't mentioned me coming home to her house to my mother. What did that mean, exactly? Had Maura not thought about me coming home to her before that morning? Had she not discussed any of her feelings or ideas with my mother? How much of our conversation from earlier that morning did I need to keep a secret?

I didn't have too much time to think about it because the house doctor came up at mid-morning and checked my incision site and looked at my throat.

"I think it's safe for you to start on solid foods again, Jane. I'll notify Dr. Grossberg and she'll have to sign off on it, but I think you're good to go. And you know, if your mother wanted to bring you a nice, unhealthy lunch today as a treat, I think I could be convinced to tell the nurses on duty to turn a blind eye."

I looked over excitedly at my mother.

"How could I deny that face?" she asked, laughing. "It's really okay, doctor?"

"Yes, but don't go too far overboard. As soon as you feel full, stop eating. Don't make yourself sick. Try to avoid anything too spicy at first. There will be lots of other opportunities to indulge. And don't get too used to the unhealthy stuff. I think after all you've been through, and how hard you're working, you can use the excessive calories and enjoy yourself, but it can't become a habit."

"This is seriously the best day ever," I said out loud. First Maura had been there, then Ma and I were having a good morning, and now real food for lunch. I didn't know whether to be depressed over what my life had become, since it was things like this that thrilled me now, or just to go with how happy I was feeling.

I decided to go with the happy.

The doctor laughed and stepped out of the room.

"Ma, I'd love a cheeseburger and fries. Please?"

"Where from?"

"The Dirty Robber." I said eagerly.

"Jane, I can't go all the way downtown and back again. It would take me at least an hour in each direction." Ma looked disappointed for me.

She was right, unfortunately.

"Yeah, you're right, sorry. How about just from someplace around here?"

"I can do that," Ma said, grabbing her purse.

"Thank you so much, Ma. Really, thank you."

"You're welcome. I'll see you in a little while."

"Just be careful!" I called after her.

I sank back on the pillows with a huge smile on my face. I was having such a good day that I was actually looking forward to starting therapy again tomorrow. I couldn't wait to ditch that wheelchair. The idea of aqua therapy sounded intriguing.

My mother came back about forty-five minutes later with a cheeseburger, fries, and a thick milkshake for each of us.

"There's a burger joint just up the road, they were packed at lunchtime but the burgers look really good."

I opened the aluminum container with my burger in it and stared at it hungrily. "This looks amazing."

"Dig in!" Ma said cheerfully.

I looked from the burger to the fries and back again, trying to figure out what I wanted my first taste of delicious, terrible-for-me food to be after so many months. The fries were golden and salty, with just the right amount of greasiness. But the burger, oh god, the burger. It was stacked high on a bun with ketchup and cheese just oozing out. I could even smell the pickles on it.

I decided the burger was the way to go, and picked it up, holding it in two hands almost reverently. I didn't want to miss out on a single drop of that goodness.

I carefully took my first bite, and moaned rather inappropriately at the taste.

"Jane." My mother laughed. "Really?"

"You try living off of a feeding tube and then babyfood for three months and see what your first reaction to real, bad-for-you, food is!" I laughed back at her.

"Don't go too crazy if Maura's coming for dinner. You'll want your appetite for that."

"I still can't believe she's coming." I said with my mouth full. " God, I look awful. I wish my hair would grow back."

"You're all over the place today, Jane. She doesn't care what you look like. You look a hundred times better than you did while you were in Hartford. And your hair is growing back. Before long those scars are going to be completely covered and you won't know they're there."

"But the rest of my scars will be visible."

"They'll fade too. They always do," Ma said.

"Yeah, but-"

"Just eat your lunch, Jane."

I grunted and took another bite of my burger, temporarily forgetting that I looked like death warmed over. Literally.

I ate almost half of the burger and a handful of fries. I probably could have packed the entire thing in, going way beyond the sensation of being full, but the doctor's warning to stop eating when I felt full and the idea of a leaky incision made me stop. I pushed the container away from me sadly, and took another swig of my milkshake before Ma tossed everything in the trash.

"That was so good." I practically groaned.

"You ate like a trooper." Ma said happily. "We need to put some meat back on those bones."

I laughed. "I'm glad you think half a burger and a handful of fries is eating like a trooper."

"It's a start." Ma shrugged. I could tell by her expression that, a few months ago, seeing me eat on my own again was something she wasn't sure she'd ever see me do again.

Ma stayed until about five o'clock, then started getting ready to leave. We really had a great day together, and part of me was sad to see her go. I was really looking forward to Maura coming back though, and I was thankful Ma had been there to spend the day. Otherwise the day would have dragged while I waited for Maura's return.

"So I'll come back on Sunday? Maybe I can bring the boys and we can have gnocchi together?" Ma asked as she gathered her things.

"That would be terrific. But only if Frankie and Tommy don't have anything better to do."

"I'm sure they don't have anything better to do than to come and see their only sister. And I'll ask Maura too-"

Ma's cell phone started ringing and she fished it out of her bag, looking at the caller identification. "Speaking of whom... Hey Maura!" Ma said cheerfully. "Yes, I'm still here. Okay, hold on a second."

She handed me her cell phone. "It's for you," she said brightly.

"Hello?" I asked into the phone, confused. It dawned on me that that call had been the first time I'd used a phone in over three months. It felt decidedly weird.

"Jane, it's me," Maura said.

"Hi Maura," I said quietly, turning my back to my mother for a modicum of privacy. "Are you on your way?" I asked.

"No Jane, I'm so sorry. I just got called to a scene in Revere. It looks like I'm going to be pulling an all nighter. I'm sorry Jane."

I could hear Maura start her car in the background.

"I understand," I said simply. I did understand. Maura wasn't capable of lying, so I know she wasn't trying to get out of coming to visit me. I knew she didn't have any choice about going out to the scene, but I was still sorely disappointed.

"I will come tomorrow night," Maura said resolutely.

"It's okay. You're going to be exhausted tomorrow night if you're up all night tonight. Ma's going to come back on Sunday, and since I'm allowed solid food now she's going to bring gnocchi. Why don't you try to come then? We could all have dinner together."

"I'm on call on Sunday, but I will do my best to get there and have dinner with all of you. I'm still going to try to get there tomorrow night, but if not, I'll be there Saturday, okay? I'm off on Saturday."

"Maura, you're busy. You don't have to come see me. I can't even do anything fun," I said sadly.

"I want to see you. I had every intention of getting there tonight, Jane, and I apologize for canceling. I'm _not_ avoiding you," she said sternly.

"I understand," I said, trying to mask my disappointment. It was irrational of me to be so disappointed. This was clearly beyond Maura's control. "Anyway, Ma needs her phone back-"

"No I don't!" Ma yelled in the background.

"So I better go," I continued. "Go catch the bad guys," I said sadly, wishing I could be doing that instead of sitting here.

"I'll see you either tomorrow or Saturday," Maura said quickly, "I promise."

"Okay. Bye Maur." I replied sadly, getting ready to hang up.

"Jane?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't be sad. I'm going to miss you tonight, too."

I looked over at my mother staring at me. I know she couldn't hear Maura, but I know she could hear me and was hanging on my every word.

"Me too," I said simply.

Maura sighed on the other end of the phone. "Bye Jane."

"Bye."

I handed the phone back to my mother. "She got called to a scene, so she's not coming."

"I'm sorry, Jane."

"Me too. But she can't help it," I said it as much to reassure myself as to remind my mother.

"I know, but it's disappointing anyway, isn't it"?

"Yeah," I said glumly.

"You want me to stay?"

"Nah, go home. Give Jo a pat on the head for me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it's fine," I grumbled, looking down to hide my disappointment.

"Okay. Try to have a good night. Remember how good of a day it was today, Jane. Don't let this ruin it for you. It's not her fault."

"I know, I won't. Thanks for the burger. It was awesome." I did cheer up a bit thinking about the day I'd had. Maura had been there that morning, and I did finally get to see her. We had cleared up so much in such a short time. And Ma and I had enjoyed a great day together too. Maura needing to work all night wasn't her fault, and it wasn't something I should focus on.

"You're welcome. I'll see you on Sunday. Call if you need anything."

"I will, Ma."

Ma kissed me on my forehead and left, and I sat there wondering what I was going to do with myself for the rest of the night.

* * *

**A/N:** Thank you, as always, to CharlietheCAG for betaing this chapter, and all the others.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N:** In this chapter Jane talks about leaving her job with the NYPD and has a session with her psychologist. Although I've always tried to go for realism, I'm not sure of how people are released from police unions OR what gets discussed in sessions with psychologists. I _am_ remotely familiar with workers compensation settlements in my state due to my job, so I modeled the chapter after that knowledge, and I did what I thought fit the story best for the psychotherapy session. It might not be accurate to people with actual knowledge of these things though, so I molded the chapter to fit the story, and perhaps not fit with real life. Just giving a heads up.

* * *

_"I'll see you on Sunday. Call if you need anything." Ma said._

_"I will, Ma."_

_Ma kissed me on my forehead and left, and I sat there wondering what I was going to do with myself for the rest of the night._

...

I didn't have to wait too long. There was a knock at the door a little later and Walter Laffler walked in.

"Hi Jane," he said warmly. "How's it going?"

"Okay, I guess." I shrugged. "How are you?"

"I'm doing well. I have some good news for you so I thought I'd stop in and tell you about it."

"Okay," I said. I could use some good news. Maura's last minute cancellation had really soured my mood and I had to keep telling myself that it wasn't her fault, and she couldn't help it that Boston had such a problem with murders.

"First, your motion to be released from guardian ad litem status was approved by the courts yesterday. As of today, you are officially your own guardian again. Congratulations," he said with a smile.

"Thanks." I would have thought that the idea of becoming my own guardian again would have been more exciting, but Maura's cancelation weighed too heavily on me to really even consider the implications. And as long as I was stuck in that rehab, with nurses regulating my every move, it would feel like I was still under guardianship regardless of what the courts said.

"And I have some paperwork here for you to go over regarding your settlement with the NYPD. I approached them with a counter offer and we've arranged a settlement that I think will meet your immediate needs, but you have to approve it first."

"Okay," I said, shifting uncomfortably.

"When we last spoke, I told you that to encourage you to give up your position within the department, they were offering to make sure their compensation fund continued to pay your medical bills and they were offering two years' salary as well as attorney's fees. I made them a counter demand of five years' salary in addition to your medical bills and attorney's fees. They came back with an offer of three and a half years' salary, medical bills and attorney's fees."

"Wow." I was shocked. Was it possible that it would take me three and a half years to get ready to go back to work?

Walter interrupted my thoughts. "I think it's a good offer and I think you should take it. I don't really think we'll be able to get much more out of them."

"So, how much, exactly?" I asked hesitantly.

"Just over three hundred thousand dollars. There's no cap on your medical bills, they'll just continue paying them as they have been."

"And your fees are paid as well?" I was shooting questions at him the same way I'd question a suspect. Probably because I was so suspicious of walking away from my job. Deep down though, I knew I had no other choice.

"For this settlement, yes." Walter, for his part, was taking my questions in stride.

"And there's nothing in this agreement that says I can never go back to work as a detective, right?" I knew Walter could hear the abrupt about-face in my attitude when I asked that last question. His face softened.

"Not at all. There is a stipulation that if you return to the NYPD within the next three and a half years, you will have to repay this settlement, but you're free to work for any other police department you want if you're physically able."

"What do I have to do?" I asked, finally resigned to the idea. "Do I have to go to court or something?"

"Nope, you'd just have to sign this paperwork."

"And that's what you recommend I do?"

"Yes. Keep in mind, this is just one settlement out of several that you're likely going to get. You're going to be well taken care of. This is just a nest egg for you to use once you're out of rehab."

"What's going on with my other lawsuits?" I asked, curious.

"It looks like Amtrak is going to fight us on this one, which is silly because you're going to be quite a sympathetic witness to a jury. But the railroad that owned the tracks and that was responsible for maintaining the signal that your train blew past may look to settle, but that's a ways off yet. We still have to determine what your recovery is going to be like, and base our demands on what your future needs are.

"The Boston DA's office turned the suit over to their indemnity insurer and I'm sure we'll see a modest settlement from them at some point in the next couple of months."

"Okay," I said again.

"So do you agree with the settlement terms from the NYPD?"

"Yes, where do I sign?"

Walter pulled several documents out of a folder and had me sign them. I read them over carefully, scared that we were somehow missing the part where I was signing my career away without realizing it.

"Great!" Walter said cheerfully when I was done. "I'll get these over to their law department tomorrow and we'll probably see a check in a few weeks. Should I have your mother deposit it for you?"

"Yes, please. Thanks." I looked down at my hands, wondering if I'd just used them to give away my career. Walter had reassured me that I hadn't, but it felt like I had anyway.

"Don't look so down, Jane. All you did was walk away from a job. It doesn't mean you can't get better and go back to work as a detective elsewhere."

Walter's assurances did little to make me feel better.

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

"Have a little faith. We're working hard to make sure you've got both options and a safety net," he said confidently.

"You sound like a commercial on daytime television." I was going for sarcastic, but Walter saw this as funny, and he laughed.

"We don't advertise. We're not that type of law firm. I'd like to think we have a higher class of clientele."

Somehow that made me feel a little better. I can't put my finger on exactly why it did, but I thought it might have had to do with knowing that people came to them via word of mouth, and they didn't seek out clients on billboards or from chasing after ambulances.

"If Maura Isles chooses you, you're automatically the best of the best," I said. It was true. She wouldn't choose a law firm if they weren't the best. She wouldn't choose anything if it wasn't the best.

"We should start using that as our motto," Walter laughed. "Anyway, thanks for signing these documents. I'll let you know when the settlement comes through and I'll also keep you apprised of everything else that's going on."

"Thanks," I replied, and Walter walked out.

The afternoon nurse came in and wheeled me down to the dining room for dinner. I wasn't all that hungry- my burger that afternoon combined with my disappointment over not being able to eat with Maura left me with little appetite. I looked around for Barbara, but she wasn't at dinner that night, and nobody else seemed too intent on having a conversation. I just ate what I felt like eating and waited to go back to my room.

After dinner I watched television for a little while, then the night nurse came in and helped me into my pajamas. She actually let me pull myself from my wheelchair onto the toilet and then back again that night, and gave me a high five when I was done. I sure was getting sick of the need for people to lift me up and push me around and watch over me every second of every day. With each day that passed I felt stronger, and I was eager to do things like stand up and move myself around.

Once I was back in bed, at around seven thirty, I decided to call it a night. There was nothing worth watching on television, Maura wasn't coming to visit, and I had just signed away my career with a few strokes of a pen. The following day was going to be full of physical therapy and there was lots to tell Dr. Gilfried during that other therapy, so I figured I might as well get as much rest as I could.

I flicked the light over my bed off and fell asleep pretty easily.

The following morning I was happy to see Derrick and the distraction my physical therapy offered, and he seemed happy to see me in his usual morose kind of way.

"Hey Derrick!" I said happily.

"Heard you had a rough time before your surgery." He frowned, foregoing any greetings. "How are you feeling?" he asked as we started our exercises.

"I feel pretty good, actually. I'm ready to go." I said.

"Good, because we have a lot of work to catch up on."

Derrick worked me hard, but I think he was happy with the progress I was making. "After you see Dr. Grossberg on Monday, you're probably going to be approved for aqua therapy. It'll be good to set you on your own two feet and see how well you can balance. You're strong, you're doing well for someone who has been bed bound for three months."

"That's good then, right?" I asked.

"Yes, it is. But you have to realize you're not going to just stand up and walk. You have to learn how to balance on your pelvis again. You may limp from the hip replacement. It's all stuff we're going to have to work on."

"I see."

"But you're gonna be just fine," Derrick said confidently.

"How can you know that?" I asked.

"I can just tell, Detective," he said, as if I should just take his word for it.

"Don't call me that, Derrick. Don't call me what I may never be again."

"Oh, if I have any say in the matter, you're going to be, _Detective_."

I growled at him and was about to argue, but Sara had come back to bring me to my room. I took a quick bath and then she pushed me down to the dining room for lunch.

"I think I'm going to miss my afternoon nap." I said to her as she pushed me down to the dining room.

"At first you will, but it's important that you start staying awake longer. As you get stronger, you won't need to sleep as much."

I shrugged. "You're the expert."

"You'll see soon enough," she said as she wheeled me in. "I'll be by afterward to take you over to see Dr. Gilfried."

"Yay!" I said sarcastically.

"She's not that bad," Sara admonished. "You just don't like her because she pushes you to talk about things you never talk about to anybody. You feel like she's forcing you. You know though, that deep down, her sole motive is to help you."

"No, you're right, she isn't really a bad person, which makes it that much harder for me to not like her." I admitted. "But my last session with her was plain awful, and didn't help me with anything. You'll need to forgive me if I'm not exactly looking forward to dealing with her again."

"You can't let one bad session turn you off to the entire process. You've been fighting her one way or another since you arrived here. And don't tell me you haven't been. I've seen it myself, Jane."

"You're supposed to be on my side," I said to Sara.

"I am on your side. I'm here for you. But I'm not going to coddle you. You should just embrace therapy and stop fighting it. Dr. Gilfried is a good person. She's helping you, whether you want to admit that or not. She's helped lots of other patients too. She knows what she's doing, even if you think she's out to get you."

"Really?" I deadpanned.

Sara sighed from behind the wheelchair. "Dr. Gilfried specializes in emotional rehabilitation following serious injuries. She's seen patients that have been far worse than you come back and be emotionally stable. Heck, I'd even say she's gotten patients that have been far worse off than you to be _happy_. She helped them to find their place in the world after their injuries, and she's looking to do that with you, too. That doesn't make the process easy though. Fighting her and fighting the need for that kind of therapy is just going to delay your progress. In fact, fighting her is going to delay your release from rehab altogether."

Sara had a point, but I was loathe to admit it. My last session with Dr. Gilfried had not gone well and I really felt like she had crossed a line. But the way Sara put it, Dr. Gilfried had crossed that line to try and help me. All of us knew that if Dr. Gilfried didn't push, I wasn't going to make any effort in my psychological therapy. It was why I'd never done it when it was offered to me following my run ins with Hoyt and my shooting with Marino. I didn't trust it, but that didn't mean that it didn't work for people who put the right effort into it. If she didn't push me, I was likely to just sit there silently and give her dirty looks.

"You're right. I still don't like it though," I said grudgingly.

"You don't have to like it. But don't fight it, Jane. Just do what she asks of you. Participate in your sessions with her without looking for some kind of ulterior motive on her part. Nobody ever said any of this is was going to be easy."

"It's definitely not easy," I said as we got to the dining room.

Sara came around to the front of my chair before she we went in. She squatted down so we were eye to eye. "Please take my word on this. I've never been in your shoes, but I've worked with lots of patients who have been. The ones that work hardest in_ both_ their physical and psychological therapies are the ones that have the best recoveries. Dr. Gilfried is not a bad person. She has your recovery as her sole goal. Listen to what she has to say and work with her. Stop fighting her, and you'll actually start to feel better."

I huffed, and Sara looked disappointed.

"Enjoy your lunch, Jane," she said cheerfully as she walked back around my chair and pushed me in at my seat at the table.

"Bye," I said simply.

Barbara was in the dining room, but was engrossed in a conversation with Jaime when I came in. She gave me a wave but didn't make any motion for me to move and sit near her. Instead I remained seated next to Amanda, who gave me a lopsided grin.

"Hi," I said with a small smile. "I'm Jane."

Amanda nodded and gave a little wave.

"You're Amanda, right?" I asked.

She nodded again, then used her left hand to point at her mouth and shake her head. Amanda couldn't talk, it seemed.

"I understand," I said carefully. I didn't want to put my foot in my mouth the same way I'd done with Barbara at first. I didn't think everyone at the rehab was as understanding as she was, and I didn't want to risk finding out. "I had a breathing tube for a while and couldn't talk either," I added.

Amanda gave me a lopsided grin again, then dug into her food. It seemed that it was going to be another quiet meal for me. Considering how much talking Dr. Gilfried and I were going to be doing after lunch, I supposed that it wasn't the end of the world. Sitting there like that, it gave me time to think about what Sara had said about Dr. Gilfried. I had made Dr. Gilfried the enemy before we'd ever really had a session together. It wasn't in my nature to trust her, but I'd never really given her a chance. Then we'd had that awful session right before my surgery, and I'd made her frustrated with me by my outright refusal to participate in the session.

She was still wrong to force me, but could I have gone about that in a better way? Probably.

I sat there and thought about it, and I realized I was going to have to open up more in therapy. It wasn't going to be easy, but fighting myself and fighting Dr. Gilfried wasn't going to help me recover from these injuries. Dr. Gilfried and I needed to find a happy balance. And I had to understand that in that kind of therapy, I had to cede control over to her. I wasn't good at that, and it wasn't going to be easy.

Lunch consisted of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chicken noodle soup with saltine crackers, a cup of fruit, and a small container of yogurt. It was so simple, yet it tasted so incredibly good. After all that therapy that morning though, I was still fairly hungry. I was glad when they came out and served us each a scoop of vanilla ice cream afterward.

I may not have been much of a foodie before my accident, but now that I was finally getting to eat again, I looked forward to every meal.

After lunch Sara wheeled me down to Dr. Gilfried's office. "Be nice," she said softly as she pushed me into the room.

"I'm always nice!" I growled back at her.

"Sure you are!" she laughed. She gave Dr. Gifried a wave and then closed the door behind her.

"How are you today, Jane?" Dr. Gilfried asked me with a smile. She was friendly, and not the least bit angry about our last session. It took me off guard.

"I'm doing well. How are you?"

"I'm happy to hear you're doing well. I was concerned about you after we last spoke."

"I've been eating well since I got back from the hospital," I said quickly. "They even put me back on solid foods."

"That's great," she said with a smile. "I hope we can have a better session today. Our last one didn't go well at all. I didn't enjoy pushing you, Jane. I hope you know that."

"I didn't enjoy being pushed," I said, glaring at her.

"I'm sorry," she said genuinely. "My job is to push you though. I can't let you just sit there and not talk to me. That being said, I don't want us to end up in a situation like we were in the last time you were here. I need you to work with me and not against me. I am not out to make you miserable."

"I understand that now," I said quietly. "I'm not good at this stuff."

"What stuff?"

"The emotional stuff. Talking about feelings."

"You don't have to be good at it. You just need to participate in it," she said with a shrug.

I sighed.

"Sara gave me this huge pep talk on the way to lunch today, and I really thought about it. And you're both right. I have to stop fighting this. But it's not easy and I don't know how to be better about it."

"Well, let's start over today. Okay?" Dr. Gilfried looked hopeful. "Let's give this another try and see if we can't ease into things in a different way. I will try not to push you so hard if you will agree to try to not to fight me every step of the way."

"All right," I said, and crossed my arms.

"Okay, but you're already getting defensive." Dr. Gilfried said, motioning to my stance in my chair.

I looked down at myself and grinned. "Sorry," I said, and I relaxed.

"Why don't you just tell me a little bit about your surgery?" she asked me.

That seemed like neutral enough ground, and I figured we could do that. It seemed better than telling her I'd officially left the NYPD- something I myself wasn't ready to acknowledge at that point. Instead, since I'd resolved things with my mother and I, and I told her about that.

"Ma came to sit with me during my preoperative testing, and was there after my surgery was over. I feel like we cleared the air a lot."

"That's good."

"Yeah, it is. She spent the day with me yesterday, too. We played cards, watched television, and talked a lot. It was a good day. It felt like it was almost normal for the two of us. I actually enjoyed it."

"Terrific," Dr. Gilfried replied. "How about physically? Any complications from the surgery?" she asked.

"No, everything is fine. I had a few days to recover and I'm not really even sore from it."

"Good." She smiled. "Anything else?" she asked me, and I wondered if she somehow knew that Maura had been there, or that Walter Laffler had come with the paperwork that would render me officially jobless. Maybe the night nurses had told her? Maybe they logged all the visitors that came and went, and Dr. Gilfried knew they'd been there to see me? Or maybe she really was just asking me if there was anything else I wanted to share with her.

If I was going to give this a shot, I figured I'd better tell her about Maura's visits. The NYPD thing could wait. Dr. Gilfried already knew I was facing losing my career, and I didn't want to discuss it that day. Instead, I figured Maura was the better choice. I took a deep breath, and just blurted it out.

"Well, you're never going to believe this, but Maura came to see me. Twice!"

* * *

**A/N:** I'm proud to report that this story, along with my story "I Wish I was Your Lover" have been nominated for fic awards at the Rizzles Fan Awards site. To the person or people who nominated me: THANK YOU. You have no idea how incredibly happy you've made me. It's such an honor to be nominated! Thank you so very, very much! For more information about the awards, check out the link to the awards site that I've put at the bottom of my profile page on here. You can nominate your favorite Rizzles authors too, if you would like. Nominations are going on through the end of this month.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: ** Thank you to those of you who are still here, still reading, and still reviewing. Although Jane and Maura have spoken, they have a lot to work out, and the coming chapters will cover that. Plus we have Jane's physical recovery to deal with. There are lots of ups and downs to look forward to in the coming chapters, and I hope you'll stick around. :)

* * *

_If I was going to give this a shot, I figured I'd better tell her about Maura's visits. I took a deep breath, and just blurted it out._

_"Well, you're never going to believe this, but Maura came to see me. Twice!"_

…

"She did?" Dr. Gilfried looked totally surprised. Either she was a terrific actor, or she really didn't have an ulterior motive by asking me if there was anything else to talk about. I really had to stop trying to look at Dr. Gilfried as if she was a suspect trying to hide something from me. I took a deep breath before I continued.

"Yes. The first time was the night before my surgery. I was sedated, so I thought I dreamed she was there. But then she came back Tuesday night after I fell asleep and I woke up to find her there, and we spoke. We talked for more than two hours, actually."

"That's great! Tell me what you talked about." Dr. Gilfried looked genuinely excited. She sat on the couch in her office and tucked her legs under her, as if she was going to listen to some juicy gossip. It made me realize that she was actually listening to me. She wasn't just processing what I was telling her and diagnosing me. She was listening to what I had to say. She wanted to hear it.

"Well, I apologized to her for walking away right before her wedding, and I thanked her for everything she's been doing for me since my accident. I told her I missed her, and that I was sorry for kissing her the last time I saw her."

"What did she say?"

"Well, she was accepting of my apology, and things were a little awkward between us for a few minutes. But then she told me what she'd been through since I left and we were able to just start talking from there. I thought I had it bad, but Maura's been through a lot lately too."

"Such as?" Dr. Gilfried asked.

"Well, she didn't marry William, for one thing."

"She didn't?" Dr. Gilfried looked as surprised as I felt when Maura had told me.

"No, he broke things off with her the day I left."

"How did that make you feel?"

"Honestly? I had this split second of happiness when I found out that she didn't marry him. But that disappeared really fast and then I just felt bad that it happened the way it did. I felt bad for her." I shrugged and looked down, guiltily. I felt bad for feeling that moment of glee, knowing she hadn't married William. But I was human, and learning that the love of my life didn't marry the wrong person had been a good moment for me, even if it had been bad for Maura.

"I don't think you were unjustified in feeling a bit of happiness at the news, but it's good that you were saddened for her. It shows that you empathize with her," Dr. Gilfried said in response to my reaction. "What happened to their relationship?"

"They had a huge argument the day I was leaving. He was mad that she was so upset over what I was doing. He told her he was tired of taking a backseat to me. Apparently he had followed Maura to my apartment and I didn't see him when I kissed Maura. He saw me kiss her and gave her an ultimatum after I walked away. Told her that if she ran after me, she could forget about marrying him."

"What happened?" Dr. Gilfried had leaned forward, eager to hear the rest of the story.

"She ran after me, but I had already driven away," I said sadly. "I didn't know she tried to stop me after she'd frozen up like that."

"How did that make you feel, to learn that?"

"Guilty. I felt terrible that I wound up breaking them up. I never intended for that to happen, and I told so. It helped a little that she told me she knew that wasn't my intention."

"Why didn't she try to contact you, after they broke up?" Dr. Gilfried questioned.

"She was pregnant. She miscarried right at the end of her first trimester. She didn't want to call me and tell me she was pregnant and that William had left, because she thought it would be like saying that since William was gone she wanted me to help her out. After she miscarried she went through a hard time, and she didn't get in touch. My mother took care of her."

"That's terrible." Dr. Gilfried looked genuinely sad for Maura.

"Yeah, she got pretty upset telling me about it. I felt bad for her. Maura would make a wonderful mother."

"Did the two of you talk about your relationship at all?"

"Yes. She told me that she had feelings for me for years, but when I never responded to her flirting, she gave up. And then William came along and she thought she could have the best of both worlds. Me as her best friend and William as her husband."

"How did you react when you learned that?"

Dr. Gilfried looked more like someone I was meeting for coffee and less like a psychologist as she leaned over to the coffee table and took a sip from her mug. As this session was progressing, it was becoming easier for me to see her as a person, and not completely as a doctor. I definitely was starting to relax, and it was getting easier for me to respond to her somewhat irritating questions.

"Horrible. I mean, if I had known that she felt the same way, I would have said something. I would have done something about it. I would have never gone to New York or been on that train to come back to Boston. I could be with her now instead of in rehab, wondering if I'm ever going to be a detective again." I tried to curl up on myself in the wheelchair, and Dr. Gilfried took notice.

"You can't go back and change it though," she said gently. " So what are you going to do now?"

"Well, take it one day at a time, I guess. We talked a lot and she was supposed to come for dinner last night, but got called to a crime scene."

"Are you sure? She wasn't avoiding you?" Dr. Gilfried looked skeptical.

"No, she's incapable of lying. I mean, physically incapable of it. She breaks out in hives, and if the lie is bad enough she'll go vasovagal."

"Vasovagal? Fainting spells?" She looked incredulous, and I almost had to laugh. Unless she'd seen it happen to Maura, like I had, her reaction was justified.

"She faints. She taught me that phrase."

"Seriously?" Dr. Gilfried looked like she might laugh.

"Yeah, if I hadn't seen it happen before, I wouldn't believe it either."

"So what now?"

"Well she's going to try to come by tomorrow. I guess we'll talk more."

"Did she give any indications as to your relationship? Did you talk about yourselves moving forward?"

"Well she did say she loved me, but it's hard to tell what the context was. And I told her I never stopped loving her. We just left it at that. I don't think either one of us is in a position to put a label on our relationship right now. I think we have to work on being friends first. I'm not the same person I was before I left for New York. I couldn't ask her to love me until she gets to know me again. And the same with her, really. She's been through a lot, too."

"I think that's an intelligent approach. I'm happy that the two of you have at least opened up the door and are communicating." Dr. Gilfried looked genuinely proud of me.

"Me too. It was wonderful to see her. I'm really looking forward to seeing her tomorrow. I know she'll keep her word and come back."

"That's good. And what about your mother? Any plans to see her again after your good day together yesterday?"

"She's happy that Maura and I talked to each other and plan to see each other again She's going to come back this weekend and we're going to do a Sunday dinner with my brothers here at the rehab."

"That's great, Jane. And how are you doing physically? What does your physical therapist have to say?"

"Well the feeding tube came out and I'm back on solid foods, which is terrific, really. And Derrick says I'm going to start standing and doing aqua therapy soon. I can't wait to start walking again."

"Well, that's fantastic."

"Thanks!" I said, and gave her a genuine smile, because I really did feel like it was fantastic.

"We're almost done here, so I'd like to give you a writing assignment to do. You have a follow up appointment with Dr. Grossberg Monday afternoon so I won't get to see you. That will give you the entire weekend and Monday to do the assignment, okay? And it's a little bit more involved than just writing down three things that are bothering you." She handed me back my notebook.

"Okay..." I looked at her warily.

"I want you to write down three hopes for the future. But I want you to be a little more specific with this assignment. I'd like you to elaborate on why you have those hopes and what you would like to do to achieve them. I'm not looking for pages and pages worth of material, but I'm looking for more than what the first assignment involved. I'm looking for details here."

"I understand." I said. I had all weekend to write out the assignment. What she was asking for wasn't too horrible, I didn't think.

"You did really well today, Jane. I'm impressed with you." Dr. Gilfried gave me a huge smile.

"Um, thanks." I said, embarrassed.

"It would be great if we could try to make all of our sessions like this."

"I'll try." I said, and it was the truth.

"And I'll try too. Keep up the good work, Jane. I'll see you on Monday." Dr. Gilfried got up and went back to her desk to call the secretary out front.

"Have a good weekend." I said as we waited for Sara to get there.

"Enjoy your visit from Maura," she said with a wink.

"I plan on it."

There was a knock at the door, and Sara stuck her head in. "Ready?" she asked me.

"Yes."

"I see Dr. Gilfried still has both her eyes and all of her limbs are still attached. Does that mean you had a good session?" she said lightly as she pushed me back to my room.

I laughed. "Yes, I did have a good session. She gave me homework though."

"Well, at least it will give you something to do tonight when you're back in your room."

"That's true."

When we got back to the room Sara let me stay in my wheelchair instead of getting right into bed. She moved the rolling bed tray over to my chair and lowered it so I could do my assignment on it. I opened the book to the first blank page and took out my pen.

Three hopes for the future. This shouldn't be too hard, I thought.

Except it was. It was hard because every time I thought of something I hoped for, I was couldn't put it on the paper. I didn't want to have any kind of hopes for the future because I didn't know how I was going to end up, and I didn't want to be disappointed.

Sara saw me sitting there with the pen poised over the paper, but not writing.

"Hard assignment tonight?" she asked, concerned.

"I'm supposed to write down three hopes I have for the future."

"Why is that hard?" Her concern changed to puzzlement.

"I dunno." I shrugged. I couldn't tell her why this was so difficult because I had no idea.

"Jane, you can't be afraid to hope for your future," she said gently.

"I never said I was afraid," I growled.

"But I think you are." Her gentle tone never changed. That woman had the patience of a saint.

"I just don't want to be disappointed," I finally admitted.

"You can't go about your life like that. You can't be afraid of what your future holds. Just write down what you want the most out of anything and then talk about it with Dr. Gilfried."

"I'm probably making this more difficult than it needs to be. I mean, it's just a notebook," I deflected.

"Exactly," Sara said.

I picked the pen back up.

Across the top of the notebook I put down the date and the header_ "Three things I hope for"_.

_1. To make things right with Maura again. I don't know if she'll ever want to be my best friend again, or if we could ever have something more than that, but I need her in my life and I want to start over with her. I owe her so much, and I want to thank her any way that I can. I miss her friendship. I miss laughing with her. I miss how happy she made me. I hope that we can go back to that, some day. I hope I can make her as happy as she made me. To do this, I've got to keep talking to Maura. I hope she will continue to come and visit me, and that each time she comes we can talk more and more about what happened between us and how I can be a part of her life again._

_2. & 3. I hope to get better and become a homicide detective again. I worked so hard to be a detective, and I was at the top of my game. Maybe I will never be that good again, but I want to get well enough physically to requalify for duty. To do that I have to get better. I have to start walking again. Then running, because there's nothing I hope to do more than to tackle a perp again. So this is really two hopes in one. Getting better and going back to work. If I could work at Boston PD and have my old partners back, that would be an added bonus. To do this I have to work hard at my therapy and I have to bite the bullet and apologize to my old partners for the way I left things with them when I left Boston. I also need to contact my old boss and make amends there too. Although there's no time like the present and I am a master procrastinator, I'm not ready for these steps yet. I need to wait until I've stood up and taken my first steps before I open the door about going back to work. Then I need to call them all and talk to them._

I looked at the page. It looked like what Dr. Gilfried would want me to write about. It was honest and unfiltered, like she said.

I closed the notebook, figuring I'd been hopeful enough for one day.

* * *

**A/N:** Thank you, CharlietheCAG for your beta skills. They are always appreciated. :)


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: **This chapter is long. I hope you enjoy it. :)

* * *

"Done?" Sara asked, after I put my pen down and closed the notebook, my assignment from Dr. Gilfried finished.

"Yup!"

"You want to watch some television before dinner?" she asked.

"Sure." I shrugged. "It's not like there's anything else we can do, right?"

"Actually, there is," said a voice from the doorway.

Sara and I looked over at the same time. "Maura!" I said excitedly. "I didn't think you were coming until tomorrow!"

"I came today instead. Is that okay?" Maura walked in carrying a duffle bag and a few plastic bags.

"It's great!"

"Hi Sara," Maura said as she walked in. "It's good to see you again."

"Hi Dr. Isles. It's good to see you too," Sara replied.

"Sara, would you like an early night? Go home to see Eric and the kids?" Maura asked. I hadn't even thought to ask Sara if she was married, or had kids. "I'll pay you for the time anyway, of course," Maura added quickly.

Sara hesitated. "Jane still needs her pajamas and her nightly routine. She'll need assistance getting on and off the toilet."

"NO! I mean, no, it's okay. I've been practicing, and tonight would be the perfect night for me to do it by myself. I've done it myself before, and I know I'm capable of it." The last thing I wanted to do was discuss my toileting habits with Maura there.

"You've done it yourself?!" Sara and Maura asked simultaneously.

"Just once. And the night nurse got so mad at me I didn't try it again. But the morning nurse has been supervising me doing it. I can do it. And I'd rather not talk about my bathroom habits if it's okay with you two."

"If it's all right with Dr. Isles, it's fine with me." Sara shrugged, deferring to Maura.

"It's fine, Sara. Jane and I are going to have a bit of a slumber party tonight." Maura said excitedly.

"That sounds great, Dr. Isles. Jane, have a good night. I'll see you Monday afternoon. Take care, Dr. Isles. And thank you."

Sara gathered her things and left.

"I have to go get a few more things out of the car, and I took the liberty of asking them to bring up a cot for me. I thought since I canceled on you last night I could come tonight. I think you might enjoy what I have planned."

"Really?" I asked, astounded that she was even there, and even more excited that she planned to stay the night. "What do you have planned?"

"You'll see," Maura said with a smile. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Maura came back up with a shopping bag and her pillow. While she was gone, someone had brought up a cot for her to sleep on, along with some clean linens for her to use.

"You're really going to stay over?" I asked, still in total disbelief.

"Yes. And sleeping with my head on the bed while sitting in that chair is not good for my back, so if you don't mind, I'm going to make use of the guest policy here and sleep on the cot they brought up."

"I can't believe you actually want to stay!" I said, so giddy I couldn't help but repeat myself.

"Yes, Jane, I do." Maura said with a huge grin. "Is that okay with you?"

"Yes, of course, it's great! I can't believe it. You're going to stay? You're going to stay!" I sounded like I was five years old and didn't care in the least.

Maura laughed at my obvious delight. "Did you have dinner yet?"

"No, not yet. Something smells great. Did you bring dinner?"

"I did," Maura said with a mischievous grin. "Why not go get your pajamas on and I'll set up our dinner on the tray over here?"

"Okay. Just... it takes me a little extra time to do everything. So, you know... don't get mad if it takes me awhile."

"I won't get mad. Take all the time you need. If you need me, just call me, okay?"

"Okay." I knew I wouldn't call her. I really wanted to do this myself. It was as much for my own benefit as it was to impress Maura.

I grabbed my pajamas and wheeled myself into the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and used the toilet without incident. I had just wheeled myself over to where I had left my pajamas when my pajama bottoms fell to the floor. I bent over, trying to reach them, and couldn't grab them. I rearranged my wheelchair and tried again, and still couldn't quite grasp them. I stopped for a moment because the bending over was starting to make me dizzy. I waited a minute, then changed from my t-shirt into my pajama shirt. Then I bent over to try again. I still couldn't reach it.

I didn't know what to do. I was sitting there in my pajama shirt and underwear, and I wanted so much just to get changed on my own. It was something so simple, so ordinary, and yet I couldn't manage to do it. I didn't want to call Maura in, but I was starting to run out of options. I gave it one more try, and I guess Maura heard me struggling, so she knocked on the door.

"Jane, I just want to make sure you're okay," she said from outside.

"I'm fine," I grunted.

"Are you sure? Is there anything you need?" She asked sweetly.

I grunted again I reached down, and I guess Maura's concern over what I was doing outweighed her need to give me privacy, so she opened the door and stuck her head in.

"Oh, let me get them for you," she said casually as she stepped into the bathroom. I jerked my head up and tried to cover as much of my body as I could.

"No, don't! I don't want you to see me!" I cried out.

She picked up the pajama bottoms but didn't hand them to me.

"I have seen you. I saw you in Hartford, when you looked so much worse. I saw you when you shot yourself, too. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You're just as beautiful right now as you were the day I met you." She was so typically Maura when she said that. Confident and reassuring. But I was still mortified.

I actually hid my face from her. I felt nothing but humiliated, despite what she was saying.

She bent down and placed her hands on my thighs.

"Jane, look at me," she said sternly.

"Please, Maura, I can't. I don't want you to see me like this. Please." It was all I could do to not cry.

"See you like what?"

"Broken," I muttered.

"You're not broken to me, Jane," she said confidently.

"Oh yeah? Then what am I?" I challenged.

"Temporarily out of order?" she asked.

I couldn't help myself. I laughed at the absurdity of it. Of the situation, of how I felt, of how she could just pull that out of thin air like that. "Seriously?"

"You know of a better term?" she asked slightly amused.

"No, I guess not. Still, this is humiliating for me." I kept trying to cover my legs, but since Maura was bent down, leaning gently on my thighs, I wasn't doing a very good job of it.

She cupped my cheeks and turned my face to look at hers, but I kept my eyes focused somewhere behind her. "You never, ever have a reason to be humiliated in front of me, do you understand that?" Her voice was gentle, but firm.

I shook my head no.

"Well, learn it. Because it's the truth, and it's just how things are. That's always how it's been, and it hasn't changed. It will _never_ change."

"I really don't deserve that."

"You do, Jane. We have this huge rift between us and all I want is for you to understand that I'm here, and I want to be a part of your life again. Please don't shut me out. Please don't be afraid of what you think my perception of you is. Please don't walk away from me again."

I laughed bitterly. "I'm not walking anywhere, Maura!"

She averted her gaze back to the doorway, shoulders slumping. "I didn't mean it that way."

It hurt me to see her dejection. It was so easy to ruin the tenuous happiness that sprang up between us whenever we saw each other. "I'm sorry. I'm still just really sensitive to stuff like that. I'm trying to do better with it."

She nodded, then opened the waistband on the pants, and waited for me to put my feet into them.

"I know we haven't really seen each other in months, and I know we haven't been very close in more than a year, but there has never been a time when I wouldn't help you if you needed it." She pulled the pants up to my thighs. "More than anything else, I'd really like to go back to the way things were before William showed up. I know that takes time, but I'm here because I want to try for that."

I couldn't look at her. Did that mean she didn't want to be anything more than friends? Were we going to go right back to the way things were, hiding our feelings for each other? Was I going to have to relive William every time she found someone new to date? I couldn't bear that.

She interrupted my thoughts. "Put your arms around my neck so I can lift you up and get these on you."

I did as I was told, and she lifted me up from the chair slightly to pull the pants up over my hips. She set me back down lightly, and I don't know why, but I didn't take my arms away from around her neck, and she wasn't the least bit bothered by it. I looked her in the eyes for the first time since she walked in.

"Maur?" I asked.

"What?"

"I can't go back to the way things were before William came into your life."

"Why not?" She looked scared.

"Because if I do, I'll have to hide my feelings from you again. I can't live with that. Not now. I can't deal with watching you fall in love with someone else again."

I watched her eyes search my face. I'm not sure what she was looking for, but I guess she found it, because the next thing I knew, she was kissing me. Her kiss was slow and tender and so sweet. It took me a second to get over the shock of what was happening, but I kissed her back with just as much love and tenderness. It was so cathartic to be kissed by her. To know that she wasn't disgusted by the idea of it all. It was healing to feel the love in that kiss. We may have been separated by her near marriage to William and my abrupt departure to New York, but that kiss said so much. It said that for as much as everything had changed, our love for each other was still the same.

After a moment, she pulled away and stood up. "I don't think you have to worry about me falling in love with someone else," she said resolutely, as she stepped behind my chair and pushed me out of the bathroom.

"What does that mean?" I asked, my voice cracking. I tried to twist around in my chair to look at her, but she continued pushing me out of the bathroom until we were back in the room. Maura had set up our dinner on the rolling tray table.

"It means that I want to be with you, Jane. I want to give us a try. I know now is not the ideal time to start a relationship, especially considering how things were between us for so long, but in the end, the only person I really want is you." Maura came around to the front of the chair to face me.

"I loved you even when I was getting ready to marry William, and my biggest regret is not having the courage to tell you. I thought marrying William was going to give me what I needed since I couldn't have you. I was so wrong. I've had nine months of sheer loneliness to sit and think, and all I can ever think about is you. I've thought about how happy we were before I met William and how much it hurt to watch you leave. I've thought about how devastated I was when they told us you'd been on that train and we thought you were dead for almost two whole days. And then when we found out you were alive, but at death's door. I made a mistake. A horrible mistake. I never told you how I felt, and I actually lost you because of it. You are so much a part of me, and I can't function without you. I want so much just to start over. I want you, Jane. More than anything else, I want you. _Jane_. And more than anything else, I would love it if you still wanted me too."

I gaped at her and tried to say something, but the realization of what she'd just said to me was almost too much.

"I know I want you," I finally croaked out. "You're all I've ever wanted. But I'm not the same person I was, Maura. I may never be that person again. You loved the old Jane. You don't know who I've become."

"Then let me get to know you again, who you think you are. I promise you that you're not so different from your old self, and that the Jane you think you've lost is still there within you. I see her. But even if she never comes back, I will still love you. I promise you that."

"You can't promise that," I said sadly. "You simply don't know."

"Jane, I've never been so sure of anything in my entire life. I lost you once, and I won't lose you again. But if you don't want me to promise you that, then I'll promise you to try to love you. Would that be better?"

I nodded. "I-." I stopped, at a loss for words. "This is just a lot to take in at once," I blurted out.

"I know. I didn't really expect to say that to you when I arrived tonight. I only wanted to bring you dinner, watch a movie with you, and then go to sleep. I was up all night last night, and I'm probably just as tired as you are after your therapy today. But even though I didn't plan for all of this, it doesn't make it any less true."

"We can still do that. I'd like that. I'd like to spend time with you and work our way back to our friendship again. It's been a very long time since we did dinner and a movie."

"It has. And we used to enjoy that so much, so I thought it would be a great idea for tonight."

"There's only one problem though," I said.

"What's that?"

"I don't have a DVD player on this TV. I'm afraid we're going to have to settle for broadcast television."

"Au contraire," Maura said with a devious smile. "First, dig in to this dinner before it gets too cold. It rode in with me from downtown so I'm afraid it's not piping hot, but it should still be pretty good. After that I'll show you what I got for you."

"Is that...?" I hesitated. It looked like it could be. It smelled like it could be... but it would be too good to be true if it was.

"It's a burger from the Dirty Robber. Murray sends his regards and hopes you feel better soon."

"No! You brought me Robber food?"

"Yes, I did!" Maura said proudly. "He even gave you extra fries."

"That's... Maura! That's so sweet! Thank you for bringing that all the way here!"

Maura's face lit up at my excitement. "Well, I was at the precinct anyway, so it made sense to just pick it up on my way here. Go on, take a bite, it's getting colder the longer you let it sit."

I picked up the burger and took a huge, sloppy bite out of it. "Uuuhhhhhhnnn!" I groaned.

"Good, huh?" She said proudly.

"Best burger I've had since Ma brought me one for lunch yesterday," I joked, mouth full and a half grin on my face.

"Oh no, really? I wish I would have known. I would have brought you something else!" Maura looked genuinely sad that she hadn't brought me my first burger.

"Nuh-uh. This is exactly what the doctor ordered. Thank you so much," I said with my mouth still obscenely full of cheeseburger.

"Just don't eat too fast. I don't want you to get sick."

I nodded as I took a gulp of the bottled water Maura brought. "The only thing missing is the beer."

"It's going to be awhile until you can have that, unfortunately." Maura looked as disappointed as I felt at the prospect of no alcohol. My liver still wasn't up to it, and we both knew it.

"I know," I said forlornly. "Still, this is amazing."

"I'm so happy you like it."

"I love it." I paused and looked at her, and she gazed back at me with bright eyes and a gorgeous smile. I missed that expression. It was so typically Maura. "I love you, Maura." I'd said it before I'd even realized I was saying it, but I didn't regret it at all.

"You're just saying that because I brought you a burger," she deflected with a smile.

"Look at you, learning the masterful art of deflection! Between that and the sarcasm the other day, I'm starting to think I may need to get to know you again too."

"Well, we've got plenty of time for that, don't we?" Maura asked.

"Yes we do. But I meant it, Maur. I love you. Always have."

She smiled at me. "I love you too, Jane."

Hearing her say those words was beyond anything I could ever hope for. I mean, sure, she'd said those words to me a few nights before, but she'd almost said them in anger. She had been frustrated with me when she'd said them. But at that moment, she'd told me she loved me in the softest, kindest way. I didn't think it really happened to people, but I felt my heart melt at the words.

I grinned at her and took another bite of my burger.

We ate in a comfortable silence for a few minutes longer. I had only gotten through half my burger and a handful of fries when I had to stop. I pushed my plate away.

"What's wrong?" Maura asked.

"Sorry, I'm full. I have to stop eating when I'm full otherwise my incision from my feeding tube can start leaking. The idea of that grosses me out."

"It's good to stop then. We can leave it out, and you can pick on it later if you want."

"We'll see. I know I need the calories, but I really am full."

"Okay," Maura said. "Let me show you what else I brought."

She picked up a shopping bag and pulled out a box. "The other day I had to call your mother and hope she was still here when I had to cancel on you. I could always call the rehab, but I thought you might enjoy having this. I programmed it with my home, cell and office numbers, your mother's number, Frankie's number, Tommy's number, Frost's number, Korsak's number, and Cavanaugh's number."

She handed me the box. It was a brand new, state-of-the-art smartphone. "It's got unlimited voice, data and text so you can use it as much as you'd like."

"Maura, this is too much. I can't take this," I said as I stared at the box in wonder.

"Please take it. I was kind of hoping you would maybe want to text me during the day, when you had the time," she said sheepishly. "You know, like we used to?"

I smiled at her. "That would be nice."

"It would be. I miss hearing from you. I miss those random moments when a text from you would come in and make me smile. _And_ I can send you pictures of Jo Friday and the tortoises too, now that you have that."

"Still Maura, the phone is expensive enough, and then the service fees on top of that... I can't ask you to pay for that. Walter Laffler says one of my settlements is coming through in the next few weeks. Maybe we can activate it then, and I can pay for it?"

"No, those settlements are for your nest egg. This is a gift from me. I just added you to my plan. It's not as expensive as you think."

"But-"

"Please, Jane? I'd really like to be able to talk to you on the days when I can't get here. I miss talking to you," she admitted again.

I looked at the phone. It really was a nice phone.

"You can put a bunch of apps on it and play games when you're bored," she said, trying to convince me as I looked from her to the phone and back.

"Okay," I relented. "Thank you."

She beamed at me. "And I have one more present, that we can use tonight to watch a movie."

"More? Really, Maura, this is all too much! You've already done more than enough." I felt incredibly guilty accepting anything from her. She had already saved my life, retained an attorney for me, and was paying for me to be in a high tech, top-of-the-line rehab center in my own private room. I couldn't possibly accept anything more from her.

"Hush," she said good-naturedly. "If I remember correctly you were complaining to Sara when I walked in that you had nothing to do anyway."

"You do have a point," I said, but I still felt terrible that Maura was spending more money on me. I already knew that she had spent a fortune on me.

She pulled out a tablet computer from the shopping bag. "I thought we could watch a movie on this together tonight. I loaded my Netflix queue on it."

"Oh wow!" I said, amazed.

"It's for you." Maura said. "I thought that maybe, if you were interested, and you wanted to keep your skills sharp, and if I had an evening autopsy to do, you know, when your therapy is over, that we could talk on video chat while I worked."

"Did you just use a run on sentence?" I quirked an eyebrow at her.

"Yes. I'm feeling a bit flustered. This seems so surreal to me. I keep saying it, but I've missed you terribly, and now that we're in the same room and talking and you're going to be okay, I just can't help it. It's making me really flustered," she repeated.

"You're adorable when you're flustered."

She blushed. "So, do you want to watch a movie?"

"Yeah, sure!" I said, opening the package.

The tablet was sleek and high tech, but it had just a ten inch screen, which meant we had to lean in together to see it. We sat next to each other as we got it set up, and I realized just how tired Maura was.

"Hey," I whispered to her, looking her over fondly. "You're exhausted."

"I'm tired, yes. But not too tired for a movie before bed," she protested, clearly making an effort to stay awake and stay with me.

"You've been awake for how long now?" I asked.

She looked at her watch. "Thirty-nine hours."

"Okay," I said quietly. "Can you help me up into the bed?"

"You want to go to sleep?" she asked, disappointed.

"No, just, if you can, please help me into the bed." I gave her a small smile.

"All right."

She lowered the hospital bed and I pulled myself up and onto it. Then I scooted over while I adjusted the head of the bed to a seated position. Once the bed was back in place, I patted the spot next to me.

"Now, let's watch a movie," I said.

She looked at the spot next to me on the bed hesitantly.

"It's okay, Maura. It'll be much easier to hold the tablet this way, and you can rest."

She climbed up on the bed and sat as far away from me as she could without falling off the side.

"Maura," I said, glaring at the space between us.

"I don't want to squash you. What if I hurt you?" she asked.

"Maura my lower half is all metal rods, pins and screws. What do you think you are going to do? I'm not asking you to sit on my lap, just sit next to me!"

She scooted a little closer, and I glared at her, so she scooted closer again, until both of our legs were touching. I took the pillow from behind me and placed it over both of our laps, then laid the tablet on an angle against it.

"What do you want to watch?" I asked, happy that she was where she could rest, and so close to me.

"How about something we've already seen? This way if I fall asleep I won't miss anything." Maura stifled a yawn as she finished speaking.

"Sounds good. What did you have in mind?"

She looked through the movies in the queue. "Oh, how about _The __Vow_? We saw that together."

"No, we didn't," I said neutrally.

"Yes we did, at the Boston Multiplex, remember?" she persisted.

"I wanted to see that with you, but you saw it with William," I replied flatly.

"Oh," Maura said, and shifted away from me, uncomfortable with her mistake. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. How about we watch _Lincoln_? That's historical enough for you, right? And we did see that together." I changed my tone to as friendly as I could manage. The last thing I wanted was for her to rethink the entire night and leave because she saw a movie I wanted to see with her with William instead.

"Okay." She looked at me uncertainly.

"I'm not mad, Maura. You were with him for almost two years. I would have wondered why you didn't see a romantic movie with the guy. Don't worry about it. Scoot closer so you can see the screen."

When she moved closer, I took her left hand in my right hand, and squeezed it. "We're just watching a movie. Relax."

I heard her exhale next to me. The movie started, and I waited a few minutes before I looked over at her. I caught her looking at me.

"Uh, the movie's over here," I said, pointing with my free hand and smiling.

She grinned. "I am just having a hard time believing I'm sitting here with you, doing this. That it's your hand that's holding mine."

"It does feel like a dream, doesn't it?" I said, sharing in her wonderment.

"It really does."

We looked at each other for a few moments, studying each other's faces. She had a few more lines around her eyes than she did when I last saw her, but she was simply exquisite. There was no other way to describe her. I tried to think of when the last time I saw her was. Really saw all of her, faults and all. It was long before I left for New York. I wondered what she thought of me, all broken and patched back together, with less than an inch of hair on my head and skin so pale it could reflect light. She didn't seem to notice it.

Her eyes left mine to glance at my lips, then darted back up to my eyes again. I squeezed her hand.

The next thing I knew, we were kissing. We were side by side, sitting up on the bed, fingers intertwined, and we were kissing. Nothing ever felt better. It was slow and sweet and so tender.

After a few moments, we broke apart. "Do you know how many times I wanted to do that in the past? Do you know how often I asked myself what it would be like to kiss you? Just to tell you I loved you? Do you know how long I've waited to feel like this?" I asked.

"I do know how long. I've been waiting just as long." She was still close to me, giving me a smile that looked like she was staring into heaven.

We leaned in to kiss again, but we both jumped apart when we heard the nurse with the medicine cart approaching in the hallway outside my room.

"To be continued?" I asked quietly before the night nurse walked in.

"Definitely," she whispered back.

The nurse came in and gave us a funny look. "We were just watching a movie," I said, holding up the tablet.

"Oh, that's nice," the nurse said quickly. "Just be careful, you don't want to put too much pressure on your pelvis."

"I won't," I said, taking the cup of medicines from the nurse and swallowing them quickly.

"Call me if you need anything," the nurse said as she walked out.

When the nurse was gone, Maura got up. "I'm going to throw on some yoga pants and a t-shirt to sleep in. I'll be right back."

"Okay," I said, puzzled. Was she embarrassed by the nurse? We really weren't doing anything wrong when the nurse came in. She could not have possibly seen us from the hallway, because we'd separated long before she'd arrived at the doorway. I mulled it over while Maura got changed.

A few minutes later, Maura came back out of the bathroom dressed for bed. Or a photo shoot, since even in pajamas she looked like a runway model. She looked over at the cot they had set up for her and then looked back over at me. I was still on the far side of my bed, and I patted the spot next to me.

"Just sit with me," I said softly.

She got back on the bed, and I covered us both with the sheet. We turned the movie back on, and in ten minutes, Maura was fast asleep, leaning against my side. I turned off the tablet, turned off the light over the bed, lowered the bed to a reclining position, and fell asleep too.


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N:** I'm so glad everyone liked that last chapter. It's one of my favorites. Thank you all for the terrific reviews. They always make my day.

* * *

"Oh my god, Jane, it's almost five-twenty!" Maura yelped as she hopped out of bed.

I groaned, opening my eyes. "That means I had forty more minutes to sleep. And it's Saturday. You're supposed to be off today."

I smiled at her despite the way she'd sprung out of bed and had woken me up. Neither of us had moved all night, which meant we had fallen asleep hand in hand next to each other on the bed. My pajamas smelled like Maura, which made me not want to take them off.

"I had to change my days around because of the murder that made me miss dinner with you on Thursday. I'll be in the morgue all day today, unfortunately. And I am on call for tomorrow now, too. I still have to get home, shower, get ready for work...," she trailed off looking at the clock on the wall.

"What would happen if you showed up to work a half hour late on a day you were originally scheduled to have off?" I asked.

"Well the, um, well, for one thing, I guess, no, I don't guess..." She sputtered to a stop and huffed.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Nothing. Nothing would happen if I showed up to work late," she admitted.

"So then take your time, and drive carefully, and get home and showered and dressed."

She gathered up her things and came back over to me. "Do you need anything before I leave?"

"Yes."

"What do you need?" she asked, concerned.

I pointed a finger at my lips, and she smiled as she leaned in to kiss me. The kiss was short but sweet. I hugged her right before she pulled away.

"Thank you for last night, and for everything you brought for me. You're too generous."

"I had a nice night, though we missed the movie." Maura skipped right over the generous part. She'd never been one to flaunt her wealth, and just like in old times, my repeated thanks tended to make her self-conscious.

"It was worth it." I grinned.

"Text me today?" she asked.

"You got it. When am I going to see you again?" I asked.

"Maybe tonight? I'm not sure how long I'll be at the precinct today, but if it's quiet I can stop in. I don't think I can spend the night again though. I don't want to wear out my welcome with the nurses."

"I'd like that. But if you can't, if you're tired or whatever, just go home. I'll miss you, but I would totally understand." I really didn't want Maura to tire of coming to visit me. I wanted her with me at all times, but she needed time to herself. Her work schedule was already hectic enough. I didn't need to eat up whatever time she had to unwind.

"Let's see what the day brings," she said brightly. "Have a good day. Work hard in therapy. I'll be thinking about you."

"I'll be thinking about you too. Thanks again, Maur."

"You're welcome. I'll try to see you later, Jane."

She left, stopping once to look over her shoulder and give me a wave and a bright smile. A few minutes later I heard the cell phone that she got for me ping. I picked it up and looked at the message. There was a single text from Maura.

_I love you. Work hard in therapy, so that way you're one day closer to coming home._

I read the message over and over again, my heart melting with each new reading. Finally, I replied.

_I love you too. Wherever you are, as long as it is with me, feels like home. Last night felt like coming home. Thank you for everything._

I didn't get an immediate response, and I figured Maura was already driving. I played around with the phone for a little while, then put it and the tablet computer in the drawer next to my bed for safe keeping. At six o'clock, the morning nurse came in, helped me to get up and get dressed, and brought me down for breakfast.

I sat next to Barbara at breakfast and she gave me a huge smile.

"Hey stranger!" she said, giving me a wave with her prosthetic hand.

"Hi there!" I said. "Looks like they did the changes you needed on your prosthetic." I said.

"Yeah," she replied, holding it out to me. "It's pretty realistic looking!"

"It is!"

"The best part is that I'm going home a week from Monday, if all goes well!"

I was simultaneously pleased for Barbara, but also a little sad. She was one of the only people at the rehab that I had connected with, even if we hadn't gotten to know each other well.

"That's great, Barbara," I said, smiling.

"I can't wait to see my kids," she said. "I told them we're going to have an ice cream cake and have a little party with just the four of us."

"That sounds wonderful."

"I'm a little nervous, though," she admitted quietly.

"Why are you nervous?"

"Well, it's going to be hard, taking care of two young kids without my hand." For the first time since I'd met Barbara, I saw her cheerful facade cracking. She looked genuinely scared.

I nodded. "You're right, but you don't strike me as the type to give up easily. I mean, you got me to talk to you, and normally I don't talk to anybody. I think you're going to get used to things soon enough. I bet the beginning is going to be hard, but you'll do it. You'll go back home and continue to be the great mother you've been all along."

"Thanks," she said. "I'm also a bit nervous about the car ride home. I lost my hand in a car accident."

"I can understand that too. I was in a train accident-"

"Oh, the one in Hartford? I saw that on the news!" She interrupted me almost breathlessly, as if I was some kind of celebrity for being involved in a national disaster.

"Yes," I said quietly. "I don't think I'll be taking a train again for a long time. But at some point I am going to have to, the same way you're going to have to get into a car. I don't know what happened to you, but I can tell you that the chances of something happening again are so small. And just keep reminding yourself that you're going home, to your husband and your kids. Just think of that the whole way home."

"Maybe it won't be as bad as I think it will be," Barbara conceded.

"I think that's the right way to think." I gave her a bright smile, happy to help her a little, the same way she'd helped me the first time we sat together.

She nodded in agreement, and we dug into our breakfasts.

I did a short round of physical therapy that morning with the weekend therapist, and then had the afternoon to myself. Maura couldn't get back to see me, and Ma and my brothers weren't coming until the following day, leaving me to entertain myself for the rest of the day. I used the tablet computer Maura had brought for me to watch a movie, and then I downloaded a book to it and started reading. I had been a voracious reader before I had moved to New York. It was one of the only ways I had to escape from the situation I'd created when I let Maura get away. Having a book to read that afternoon gave me another escape, and for the first time in months, the day passed very quickly.

Maura unfortunately couldn't make it on Sunday, either. She'd been called to the scene of a triple homicide early that morning and was going to be spending the day in the morgue. Ma showed up that afternoon with Tommy and Jo Friday though, and we ate gnocchi for dinner while watching the football game.

"Where's Frankie?" I asked as we ate. Jo Friday sat next to me on the chair, impatiently waiting for me to drop some pasta her way. I was enjoying it too much to share though.

"Working," Ma answered quietly.

"Did he change his shift?" I asked. Frankie hadn't been working Sundays when I was still in Boston. He'd gone out of his way to get a shift that didn't include Sundays just to placate my mother and make it to Maura's for dinner. Maybe since they didn't do Sunday dinners at Maura's anymore, he changed his shift.

"No," Ma said, her voice low.

"Something happen that made him go in on a Sunday, then?" I asked.

"Janie..." Tommy said. Ma shot him a dirty look, but he was undeterred. "Frankie's not doin' patrols anymore."

"He's not?" I asked.

"No. He's um..." He looked over to my mother.

"He's working in Vice now," Ma finished for him.

"He got his gold badge?!" I exclaimed.

"He did," Tommy confirmed proudly.

"That's wonderful! Why didn't anyone tell me?" I asked, somewhat upset that they'd kept it from me.

"We just didn't want to upset you," Ma said gently.

"So you hid the best thing to happen to Frankie in his adult life from me?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that time he got Carla Talucci's niece Gia to sleep with him was the best thing to happen to him in his adult-"

Tommy stopped when he finally realized Ma and I were gaping at him.

"Uh, right." He grinned. "It's just that we didn't want you to be upset about work, Jane."

"I'm really happy for him!" I protested. I was. I knew Frankie wanted to make detective more than anything else, and it had scared me to think he gave up a spot in homicide when they offered it to him. What if I never got well enough to take that spot? How could I do that to Frankie? How could he give that up for me, after the way I'd treated him? But now he had a gold badge. He was a detective. I was so proud of him.

"We just thought..." Ma trailed off.

"You thought I'd be jealous?" I asked.

"Not, jealous, no, but upset maybe?" Ma asked.

"I am a little jealous. I'm jealous that he gets to work, and I don't. But more than anything else I'm happy for him. He's wanted this for so long," I said honestly.

"He's following right in your footsteps," Ma said, proudly.

I didn't tell Ma how dangerous Vice was. I'd worked it, and she must have known. I didn't want her to worry more than she already did. Instead, I just smiled. "We need to celebrate."

"Maybe we can have a little party, when you come home," Ma suggested.

"I think he'd like that." I said. I pulled out the cell phone Maura had given me and sent him a quick congratulatory text. I made sure to sign it "Love, Janie" so he would know the text was from me and could add my new number to his phone. I wasn't sure Maura had given him the number. When I didn't get an immediate response I knew he was probably undercover. He'd reply to me when he could.

"What is that?" Ma asked, looking at the phone.

"Maura brought it for me. She..." I sighed, happily. "She wants to be able to keep in touch on the days when she can't come to visit."

"That's..." Ma's expression changed to consternation, and I couldn't quite read where she was going with this. "That's sweet of her," Ma finally decided, smiling.

"And very generous. I told her that we should wait to activate it until my settlement came in from the NYPD so I could pay for it myself, but she wouldn't hear of it."

"I'm really glad you're talking to her again," Tommy said. "She misses you so much."

"I missed her too. She's been wonderful though. It's been so good, seeing her again."

"How many times have you seen her now?" Ma asked.

"She came the night after my surgery, the day after she called to cancel on me- when she called your phone, and Friday after work."

"Really?" Ma asked, surprised that I'd seen so much of Maura in such a short time.

"Yes."

Ma's expression seemed to darken again, and again I had a hard time telling what she was thinking. "Well, that's good, then."

"She seems a lot happier," Tommy interjected. "Hey, gimme your new number so I can send you pictures of TJ."

I gave Tommy my new number and Ma jumped up to get her phone to add it to her contacts list too.

"It's nice, having a phone again, isn't it?" Ma asked.

"Yeah, it's like a little bit of normalcy. It sounds dumb, but I feel like it gives me a little more independence and I am one tiny step closer to going home."

"Oh Janie that's wonderful! Before you know it, you'll be ready to leave here! I can't wait to go apartment hunting with you." Leave it to Ma to jump from getting a phone to leaving rehab.

"No Ma," I said quickly.

"Well you're going to need someplace to stay, don't you want another apartment?" Ma prodded.

For the second time in a week, I thought it would be better to withhold information from my mother. For as close as Maura and my mother had gotten in the months since I'd been gone, clearly Maura was not divulging her every move and every decision to my mother.

"No, I just meant that I won't be ready to leave here for a while now. I just didn't want everyone to get their hopes up. I'm nowhere near ready to leave here yet."

"Mhmm." My mother remarked.

I could definitely see the wheels turning in my mother's head now. I wondered if she was already piecing together the clues about Maura and I. Part of me was worried about what she was thinking, because if she was putting the pieces together about Maura and I, she didn't seem thrilled. I wondered why she didn't come right out and ask. Part of me was almost eager for her to start meddling in my life again. Almost.

I gave my mother a coy smile and returned my attention to the game. "The Pats are looking good this season, aren't they?" I asked Tommy as he shoveled more gnocchi in his mouth.

"Yah," he said with his mouth full.

Ma smacked his arm. "Stop talking with your mouth full!"

And just like that, all talk of Maura stopped for the afternoon, and I temporarily forgot about Ma's reaction to Maura's frequent visits. We enjoyed the rest of the game, Ma cleaned up, and soon they were getting up to leave.

"Thanks for coming. Both of you. I know you'd rather watch the game at Maura's."

"Nah, Jane, it's good seein' you," Tommy said as he gave me a hug.

Ma leaned over and kissed my forehead. "Have a good day in therapy tomorrow. I'll call you," she said, pointing at my phone.

"Okay." I gave Jo a pat on the head and watched as she jumped off the chair and followed my mother out, giving a sharp yip to her. "Don't forget the dog!" I yelled, knowing Jo was saying the same thing.

"Never!" my mother said as she turned and scooped up Jo. She gave me a smile and left.

I wheeled myself into the bathroom, slowly and carefully put my pajamas on, gave myself a mental high five for not dropping my pajama bottoms like I had on Friday night, and got into bed. I stayed awake a long time that night, thinking about Frankie. It bothered me that my family had kept Frankie's promotion from me. It was as bad as them keeping Maura's troubles from me. I understood, in a way, why they had kept both of those things from me, but I wished they'd stop doing that. I wasn't as fragile as they thought I was. I wanted to feel like part of the family again, and keeping things like Frankie's promotion from me kept me ostracized. I decided that night to make it a point to ask that my family stop hiding things from me. I was strong enough to take their good news and their bad news, and they needed to know that.

I was genuinely happy for Frankie. I worried about his safety, but no more so than when he was out on patrol. I hoped he had someone smart to mentor him, like Korsak had mentored me. I hoped Frankie was using his head and staying safe. And more than anything else, I hoped that I too would get my gold badge back.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N:** Big steps happen for Jane today. ;)

Thank you to everyone for all the love you leave for me in the reviews and in the PMs you send to me. Also, thank you to CharlietheCAG for her beta work, as always. :)

* * *

Derrick was waiting for me when I arrived at physical therapy that Monday morning. "We're going to try standing you up today," he said. "Not much more than that for now, but I want to see how well you can balance, and if our strengthening exercises have been working."

He wheeled me over to a low set of parallel bars, and had an assistant come over to help out. They wheeled me over to one side of the bars, and Derrick lifted me out of my chair.

"Put one arm on each bar," he instructed. "I'm going to see how you can balance. Use your arms to support yourself if you need them. Don't be afraid, there's someone behind you to catch you if you start to fall."

I did as he told me, and for a few seconds, I was standing on my own.

"Excellent!" He grinned at me. "How does that feel?"

"Okay," I said. "I feel off balance, like my hips are going to swivel out from under me somehow."

"That's normal. We're going to work on that. Do you have any pain though?"

"No, not at all," I grinned.

"Terrific. You want to try taking a step forward? Step with your left foot, since your right hip is likely to be weaker due to the hip replacement."

I slid my left foot forward a few inches and then slid my right foot forward. I then slid my hands forward on the bars. I looked up at Derrick, beaming.

"That the best you can do?" he grunted. Derrick was difficult to please, but I knew it was really for my benefit.

I tried again, this time moving my left foot a little further out, then catching up with my right foot. It was a bit harder to close the distance this time, and the step was more of a lurch than an actual step.

"Okay," Derrick said, studying me. "We have our work cut out for us, but I'm going to recommend to Dr. Grossberg that she approve you for aqua therapy. By a week from today, our goal is to get you to stand up independently."

That sounded wonderful.

We spent the better part of the morning working on the parallel bars, and it was exhilarating for me, but also absolutely exhausting. Several times my legs went out from under me, and either Derrick or his assistant had to help me back up. I made it across and back at least a dozen times though, and after awhile it was becoming easier and easier to support my weight with my legs and pelvis. By the end of our session, my arms felt like they'd turned to rubber and every bone in my lower body ached, but I had been walking. Walking! I couldn't wait to go back to my room and text Maura.

Sara was waiting in the hallway to take me back from physical therapy.

"Hey," I said cheerfully. "How are you?"

"Good!" she said. "You look happy."

"I just walked! I mean, I had to use the parallel bars and there were two people helping me, but I took steps on my own!" I couldn't help my excitement. I'd stood up, and taken steps for the first time in three months. Walking was definitely possible, it seemed, even in the weakened, clumsy form I'd done it in that morning.

"That's wonderful! Congratulations, Jane!" Sara's excitement was as genuine as my own.

"I'm so excited! I can't wait to tell Maura. And my Ma," I effused.

"I take it your slumber party with Dr. Isles went well?" Sara asked, grinning.

I briefly flashed back to Maura kissing me in the bathroom after she encouraged me, and the way she told me she loved me and wanted to be in a relationship with me. If that hadn't gone well, I don't know what would have. We'd kissed twice that night, and all I wanted to do was kiss her again. Kissing Maura may have become my new favorite thing.

"Yes, it did. I still can't believe she surprised me with dinner Friday night. She stayed all night!"

"That's great. Dr. Isles is a good person."

"She has a heart of gold," I replied sincerely.

"The Isles Foundation put me through nursing school. I was going to have to drop out after my first semester because of financial issues, and Dr. Isles was a resident at the time. We often worked the same shift, and we spoke a lot during quiet times, usually when the patients were sleeping. I told her about what was happening. The next thing I knew, my tuition was paid in full for the remainder of my degree. I got a letter from the Isles Foundation saying they recognized talent in the medical field, and that nursing in general would suffer without me. The letter was signed by Dr. Isles' parents, but I knew that she had been behind all of it. I was so shocked, and so thankful. We kept in touch through the years, and when you were injured she contacted me about doing some private work. It was the least I could do for her, after all she had done for me."

"She really is wonderful," I said with a huge smile. "She never fails to amaze me with her generosity. She's so unpretentious. Did you have to give up a job at a hospital to do this with me?" I asked.

"I did, but it was worth it," Sara said.

"Wow. I'm sorry, Sara. It must be pretty dull, being stuck here with me." Moments like that one reminded me that my injuries had changed more than just my life. Even people I didn't know before the accident had somehow been affected by it.

"Not at all. It's a short shift for great money, and it lets me go home to see my kids at night. At the hospital I was working three twelve hour shifts in a row, and it was hard to manage my family that way."

"What will you do when it's time for me to go home?" I asked her.

"I'll either find another private patient, or go back to the hospital. Fortunately this profession gives me options."

"I guess that's still a ways off yet though," I said.

"Maybe not as far as you think. If they've got you up and standing, walking comes next. You may be in outpatient therapy within a month, Jane."

"Really?" I asked. It didn't even occur to me that I wouldn't have to stay in the rehab for the entirety of my recovery.

"Sure. I mean, that depends on how hard you work at all of your therapies, not just the physical therapy. It's also up to Dr. Grossberg and Dr. Gilfried when to transition you into outpatient therapy, but if you stood up today and were able to take a few steps with help, that's a really good sign, Jane."

A month until I could possibly leave. It seemed simultaneously daunting and exciting. A month. Just one month until I could see something beyond the four walls of this rehab.

Sara interrupted my thoughts. "Let's get you bathed and ready for your follow up with Dr. Grossberg."

Sara let me pull myself into the tub and left to let me bathe on my own. These little bits of independence were really becoming treats for me. I relished doing things on my own again. The added privacy and the feeling of accomplishment was really helping to bolster my self-esteem. I missed feeling badass, and these little moments were what made me feel like it was possible for me to get back on that path. Maybe the time would come when I would be badass again.

After my bath I got dressed in yet another pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt, and it occurred to me that I did not own this many pairs of yoga pants. I'd have to ask my mother where all these clothes came from. It felt like every time my clean laundry came back to my room, there were more clothes in there than when I had started out. I had a feeling Maura had something to do with it. Hadn't she had something to do with all of this?

It felt so good to think about her and not feel my heart break all over again. I grabbed the cell phone out of the drawer while Sara was at the nurse's station. There were five texts, all from Maura.

_I'm glad we have a way to keep in touch when you're not in therapy now_.

Then a little while after that, a picture message of Jo Friday, staring up at Maura's phone. She looked happy. Another message with a picture of Bass, a massive strawberry in his mouth. A third picture message of my tortoise, with a handwritten sign next to her that said "_Come home soon. Love …_"

I smiled. I wondered what name Maura had picked out for my tortoise. I wondered if I could weasel the information out of her. It would be fun to try.

The last message was another text.

_Thinking of you. Hoping your therapy is going well. Hope to see you tonight_.

I texted back:

_Thanks for the pictures. Love the __one of my turtle. Can't wait to learn her name. Miss you today. Therapy went well. Stood up for the first time, took some steps with help. So happy and excited!_

I got an almost immediate response.

_Oh Jane! That's great news! I am so happy for you_!

She must have been happy, I thought. She totally ignored the fact that I'd called my tortoise a turtle. She never let that slip by.

_Thanks! Do you think you'll be able to make it here tonight_?

_Yes, so far, so good. But I am on call._

_I know. I hope you can ge__t here, but I'll understand if you can't. I have my follow up with Dr. Grossberg, so I have to go for now._

_Talk to you later, Jane. Good luck at your follow up_.

I was just about to put the phone back in the bedside drawer when it pinged again. I took a quick look at the text, and it made me grin so much.

_I love you. :-*_

My reply was quick. _I love you too. Kisses back_.

I put the phone away and went down with Sara to wait to see Dr. Grossberg.

My follow up with Dr. Grossberg was a little more involved this time around, and it took a long time. It was a thorough physical exam. I had to do a lot of exercises that tested my range of motion and muscle strength, as well as my balance. Dr. Grossberg also looked over my healing tracheostomy scar and my incision where my feeding tube had been.

"How are you feeling?" she asked me finally.

"I feel better than I have in months," I said truthfully.

"Any pain?" she asked me.

"I am usually sore after therapy, but the heavy duty bone pain is pretty much gone. I can sit up on my own for long periods now, and I even got to stand up today in therapy. That didn't hurt either."

"Good." Dr. Grossberg seemed pleased. "How are you eating?"

"Well, I did have two cheeseburgers in two days, which is not healthy, but no one is making that a habit. My mother and my friend each brought me one as a treat, not realizing the other had done it."

"You could use the calories, but I agree you should not make a habit out of it. You're eating regularly though?"

"Yes."

"Any muscle spasms or cramping?"

"Not since I've been back on solid food, no."

"Good." She made a few notes on her computer and then looked back at me. "You've been following up with Dr. Gilfried?"

"Yes, daily except for when I was having the feeding tube removed and on the days I have follow ups with you."

"How is that going?"

"It's... okay. Dr. Gilfried is a good doctor, and I know she's helping me, but I've never been comfortable with the idea of therapy."

"But you're participating?" she asked, peering over her glasses at me.

"Yes. I'm making an effort to not be so difficult for Dr. Gilfried. And I've done all the assignments she has asked me to do. She was pleased with my participation on Friday."

Dr. Grossberg nodded. "Well then, I think you've progressed far enough now to start aqua therapy. We'll give you one more week of just physical therapy, to give you time to get a bathing suit and any other supplies you'll need. Starting next week, you'll do aqua therapy twice a week, and have regular physical therapy the other three days. If Derrick feels the need, he can adjust the schedule as needed."

"That's good, right?"

"It's great, Jane. You're doing really well. Don't stop."

"I won't," I smiled.

Dr. Grossberg saw Sara and I out of her office and told me to see her again for a follow up in two weeks.

You could imagine my surprise when we arrived back at my room, and Maura was waiting there for me.

"Hi!" she said.

"Wow, you must have left work early. It's only four-thirty." I grinned at her.

"It was quiet, and since I'm on call, they can call me here if they need me. I can't stay too late tonight so I thought I would get over here early."

She came over and gave me a big hug. "Besides... I heard you had a stellar day, and I wanted to celebrate with you."

"Thats... that's fantastic, Maura. Thanks for coming."

"Dr. Isles, if you don't mind, I'll slip out for a little while. I'll be at the nurse's station if you need anything. Just use the call button."

"Okay Sara." Maura smiled at her.

"I just got even better news! I was approved for aqua therapy starting next week."

"Oh that's great! We'll have to get you a bathing suit. That shouldn't be too hard, what with it being February in Boston and all."

"Look at you, with the sarcasm!" I exclaimed. "You're like a pro now!"

She grinned at me. "I think I should be able to get a bathing suit for you before next week. It shouldn't be that difficult."

"Thanks. Make sure you take the money out of my account for it. You've bought me enough."

Maura waved a hand and smiled. "It's fine."

I decided not to argue with her, because I knew it would be futile. Part of me thought that Maura was actually having fun picking out clothes for me. She had always wanted me to dress better, and now she had her chance. The thought made me smile.

"Dr. Grossberg says that if I keep up this progress, I will be ready for outpatient therapy soon!" Every time I thought of leaving that rehab, my enthusiasm got the better of me.

"That's great, Jane! I've already started preparing for you at home. Just making the house a bit more accessible for you for when you arrive."

"Please Maura, don't make any changes because of me. You have a gorgeous home, don't ruin it." I felt bad that she was making any changes at all. It was her house, she should leave it how she liked it.

"I'm not ruining anything. I'm just getting it ready for you. I'm glad you'll be coming home to me."

"By the time I am ready to leave here, my settlement from the NYPD should be ready. I could just get an apartment. Then I wouldn't be a burden to you."

"Jane, I want you to come home with me." Maura's face fell. She really had her heart set on me going home to her house.

"I don't want to rush things though. What if I come home with you and you realize I'm not who I was before? What if you don't like who I've become? Then what? It would be difficult for us both. If you kicked me out, where would I go?" I asked nervously.

"I would never kick you out. Don't you ever think that, Jane. We have at least a month to get ready for your homecoming. If at the end of your inpatient stay here, you don't want to come home with me, I'll help you find an apartment. But for now, let's plan for you to come live with me when you're released to outpatient therapy, okay?"

"Okay," I breathed.

"Our budding relationship aside, don't you think it would be beneficial for you to come and stay with a doctor when you're released to outpatient therapy?" She smiled at me, and it was warm and welcoming.

"That's true," I acknowledged slowly.

"Don't be so nervous, Jane." Maura's tone was stern, but her face showed just how happy she was that I'd be coming home to her.

"I can't help it," I fidgeted.

"It's not like you're coming home tomorrow," she reminded me.

"I know. But part of me wishes that I was." And part of me was terrified of what life would be like living with Maura. I could be a terrible houseguest, I knew.

Maura smiled at me. "I wish you were coming home tomorrow too. But for now, I'll have to come and visit you."

"It's going to get tiresome for you really fast," I pointed out.

"I could never get tired of you, Jane. And right now I'm so happy just to see you and spend time with you. I looked forward to this all day."

"Me too," I said happily. "How was your day?" Changing the subject seemed like a good idea.

"It was quiet. After I finished the reports from last week's murder, I had a couple of routine, non-homicide autopsies to do, and I got back some interesting test results to share with Korsak and Frost."

Just hearing about all of that made me exhausted, and that was just a regular day for Maura. Still, I wished more than anything I could go back to working again.

"I miss work. I miss the thrill of the hunt for the killer and the rush from making an arrest or getting a confession," I admitted.

"I know you miss it. You'll be back to that soon enough." Maura sounded so confident. So sure that it would happen. She sounded like it had never even occurred to her that the trauma surgeon told me I'd never work again.

"I really hope so, but if the way I walked today was any indication, I'm never going to be able to requalify for duty." I looked down at my legs, wishing I could just magically fix them.

"You took your first steps today in three months on a rebuilt pelvis and a new hip. Did you expect to be able to stand up and do sprints?" Maura asked.

"No, but I lurch when I walk. It's more than a simple limp." I frowned, hoping that Derrick knew of some way to make me better. I didn't see how it was possible, myself.

"That's something you will work on with your physical therapists. It's a matter of learning how to balance again and adjusting your gait." Leave it to Maura to have a scientific explanation for everything. Just because the hardware was in place, didn't mean everything in my body was working the way it should be. Walking that morning had reminded me of videos I'd seen of newborn calves taking their first steps. I had a long, long way to go.

"It easier said than done," I reminded Maura.

"You have to think positively, Jane. Just the fact that you were able to stand up at all today is really promising."

"I just hope I don't disappoint anyone." Or myself, I wanted to add.

"Don't worry about anyone else other than yourself. Work on getting better. Stop worrying about work and other people's expectations. Work as hard as you can and don't give up. Believe in yourself."

"I'm going to try," I said, lacking confidence.

"You're going to succeed. And you're going to stop being so unsure of yourself. You want to be badass again? You've got to believe in yourself. You were the most confident person I ever knew. If you want to go back to being that way, you have to give yourself a chance. Don't take no for an answer, from yourself or from anyone else."

"You sound a little like Dr. Gilfried," I scrunched up my nose, a tad put off by the similarities.

"You sound like you're deflecting. Stop it," Maura frowned.

"Okay," I shrugged. "Whatever you say, Dr. Bossypants."

"Listen Detective Stubbornpants-" Maura's cell phone rang. "Dammit!" she muttered as it interrupted her.

"It's dispatch," I said glumly. "I recognize the ringtone. You never changed it."

"No. I didn't," Maura pursed her lips and answered the phone. "Dr. Isles."

Maura listened to the dispatcher. "Text me the address. I'll be there within the hour."

She hung up and looked at me. "I'm afraid I have to cut my visit short, Jane. I'm sorry."

"Duty calls," I said, trying to mask my disappointment. "I understand."

"I wish I could have stayed longer," she said wistfully.

"I wish I was coming with you," I replied, just as sadly.

"You will again, one of these days." She gave me a smile, but it looked like she was ready to cry. I wondered if she was upset because she had to leave, or if it just saddened her that I couldn't go with her and do my job.

Maura picked up her coat and started putting it on. When she had all of her belongings gathered, she leaned in and gave me a chaste peck on the lips. "I'm glad I got to see you today, even if it was just for a little while," her voice was a bit shaky. So was mine when I answered her.

"Me too. Be careful, and go catch some bad guys."

"I will." Maura smiled. "Have a good night, Jane. It's going to be a busy week for me, so I don't know if I'll see you before the weekend. But your mother is talking about coming and bringing dinner again next weekend. I'm going to be on call again, but I am going to try and come with her and your brothers."

"That would be great! But just remember to save some time for yourself. You don't have to try and get here every day. I love seeing you, but you need to rest sometime too."

"I'll try to be here Sunday. And I'll try to see you during the week too, Jane."

"I love you," I blurted out as she walked to the door, wishing we'd done more than just a peck on the lips.

She stopped and turned to me, I could see how much she didn't want to leave. "I love you, too."

I blushed and looked down, and instead of hearing her designer heels walking down the hall, away from me, I suddenly heard her coming back to me.

I looked up and she cupped my cheeks, then leaned in and gave me a searing kiss that sent a flutter through my stomach and chest. I tangled my hands in her hair and she moaned at the added contact. She pulled away abruptly though, and looked down at me regretfully.

"I really have to go," she whispered.

"I know," I said ruefully. "But thank you, for leaving me with that."

I smiled at her as she turned once again to leave, and she stopped at the door to look back and smile at me. It was that smile she had only for me.

I wanted to see her give me that smile every day forever.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N:** Thank you again for all of your reviews and encouragement, and to CharlietheCAG for her beta skills. As a friendly reminder, nominations for your favorite Rizzles fics will close on the 31st of May. If you have a favorite author or fic that you'd like to nominate, please see the link on my profile page.

* * *

Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I had regular physical therapy again. I worked with Derrick and his assistant on the parallel bars, each day making slightly more progress than the day before. Now that I was up and standing, I was frustrated with my inability to just get up and go. My brain knew how to walk, but my lower body didn't seem to understand the instructions. I also still had moments of weakness where I'd think I was moving along just fine, and then all of a sudden the mat underneath me was flying up to meet my face. I was giving Derrick and his assistant as much of a workout picking me up and guiding me along as they had been giving me.

Dr. Gilfried had been pleased with my written assignment when I had met with her on Tuesday, and we spent the entire two sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday going over my plans for the future. The sessions were hard for me, because I was so hesitant to open up about my hopes. I was afraid of disappointing myself, and even more afraid of disappointing the people I loved too. Dr. Gilfried urged me to concentrate on smaller hopes at first, but also encouraged me to think about ways to get back in touch with Frost, Korsak, and Cavanaugh. We talked a lot about my career before I'd left for New York, and it dawned on me after leaving on Wednesday that Dr. Gilfried had been giving me the therapy I'd needed after my run ins with Hoyt and my shooting during that session.

_That sneaky bastard_, I thought as Sara wheeled me back to my room, but then I grinned. If therapy with the department shrink would have gone as well as those sessions that Tuesday and Wednesday had gone, I probably would have been more willing to participate in them.

On Wednesday, after dinner, Ma was waiting for me in my room.

"Hey," I said as Sara wheeled me in. "I wasn't expecting you."

Ma gave me a wary look. "I just expected you to call if you were coming," I added quickly, "but it's good to see you."

Ma smiled at me. "I had to drop Tommy and TJ off at Lydia's and since this place isn't too far from Lydia's new apartment, I thought I would stop by for a few minutes. I didn't know what time you got out of therapy though."

"I'm all done for the day. I just finished dinner," I said, smiling.

"Did you have that, you know, head therapy today?" Ma whispered conspiratorially. I could hear Sara snicker behind me at my mother's reaction to my need for psychotherapy as she got ready to leave. It irked me a little bit that Ma seemed ashamed of that kind of therapy. I clearly needed it to help me get through what had happened to me, even if I myself had never wanted to admit it.

"I'm just going to head out if you don't need me to help you get changed," Sara said as she tried to make a hasty exit.

"Yup, it's fine. Have a good night," I said to Sara before bringing my attention back to my mother. "I don't get you sometimes," I said to her. I heard Sara leaving behind me, and wished I could walk away too.

"What do you mean?" Ma asked innocently.

"I don't get how you could be ashamed of my need for therapy. You were one of several people who encouraged me to talk to someone after Hoyt, after Marino, and now, after these injuries. So why would you act like that?"

"I'm not ashamed of it at all, Janie. I thought _you_ were. And that's why I was trying to be discreet about it."

"That was discreet?" I asked, scowling.

"For me it was, you know that," Ma gave me a small smile, and I couldn't help but laugh at her.

"You don't have to be discreet in front of Sara. She sees me naked daily," I joked.

"The poor woman," Ma joked back.

"Hey!" I barked, but I could tell from Ma's expression that she really hadn't meant anything by it.

"Oh, before I forget, Maura sent this for you."

She handed me a gift bag. I took it from her warily. "Maura's done too much already. What has she done now?" I asked softly.

"She said it was something that you were going to need. Open it, Jane."

I took the tissue paper out of the top of the bag and looked in. Inside was a card and a bathing suit. I left the card in the bag. My gut told me not to open it in front of my mother. I'd rather she didn't know it was there.

Instead I held up the bathing suit and grinned. "I do need this. I start aqua therapy on Monday morning."

The one piece bathing suit was dark blue and sporty. It was very un-Maura-like, but it definitely fit my style. I looked at it and hoped it wouldn't be too big on my bony frame. It was a size small though, so there wasn't much I could do if it didn't fit.

Ma interrupted my thoughts. "Aqua therapy, huh? Sounds like you're making progress."

"I am. I took a couple of steps on Monday," I said proudly.

"That's wonderful!" Ma gushed, coming over to hug me tightly. When she pulled back, there were tears in her eyes.

"Ma, why are you crying?" I asked her softly.

"No, it's nothing," Ma said, wiping her eyes.

"Yes it is something. Tell me," I urged her.

"It's just that I didn't know if I'd ever see you awake again, and here you are now, sitting and talking, able to eat on your own and taking your first steps. I'm just-" she gave an involuntary sob, and had to stop for a moment to catch her breath. "I'm just so happy and so relieved."

"I'm sorry you were so scared," I said to her quietly, reaching up to give her another hug.

"I'm sorry I'm so upset," Ma said after our hug, as she fished a tissue out of her purse. She blew her nose loudly.

"It's okay. I know this isn't easy for you, either. It's hard on everyone, not just me. And I'm sorry you're all going through this with me. But I'm so glad you're here, and that I have you to help me."

"Oh Janie, I love you so much."

I smiled at my mother. For all the times we'd argued, for all the times I wished she would just leave me alone, I felt happy to be loved by her. Especially in that moment.

"I love you too, Ma."

Ma's cell phone rang. She picked it up and I heard her talking to Tommy. She finished up by saying "I'm on my way," and then hung up.

"I have to go pick up Tommy," she said.

"Okay. It was good to see you, Ma. Tell Tommy I said hey." I smiled. "And thanks for bringing this by." I held up the gift bag that had contained the bathing suit Maura had sent over.

"I will. Have a good night. I'll see you this weekend, Jane," Ma said as she left.

Once I was sure she was gone, I pulled the envelope out of the package that had contained my bathing suit.

There was a funny card inside, and a folded sheet of paper. I read the card and giggled at it, but was intrigued by the letter. Maura's neat, pretty handwriting flowed over the entire page.

_Dear Jane,_

_It's a lot harder to find a bathing suit in Boston in winter than I anticipated. I found this one at a sporting goods store. I think they had it in stock for winter swim meets. It was this __swimsuit or one in chartreuse. Blue definitely flatters you better than the sickly green one ever would._

_I remember the first time I ever saw you in a swimsuit. It was during the BPD's Summer Festival, at the beach the year after I first met you. You wore__ a black bikini that I had convinced you to buy, even though you were sure it was too revealing. You wanted a plain, one piece bathing suit and I asked you to just give the bikini a try. You turned everybody's head that day, including mine. I wanted you ev__en back then, and I regret never making my desire known._

_Wear this suit and work hard, Jane. I always want to say to you 'hurry up and get better', but saying that would be unfair to you. Your recovery can't be rushed, even though I can't wait for you to __come home and be with me. I can't wait for a second chance. I can't wait to be with you in all the ways we both always wanted to be, but never could say we wanted._

_So instead I wait, as patiently as I can, for the day when I can come and pick you up and b__ring you home. I really hope you'll choose my home to come to, and that we'll make it_ our _home. I hope you'll let me offer you a home filled with love and happiness. Until then, this house is just a roof over my head. When you come back, it will finally fe__el like home again._

_If you'll let me, I'll get you a much more flattering bathing suit and take you someplace where the sun shines hot all year round. If you'll let me, I'll make up for all the time we've lost. I'll make up for all the things I always wan__ted to say to you, but lacked the courage to say._

_Until then, I'll dream of you happy and healthy, in a better bathing suit, on a secluded beach with me. Work hard in therapy, Jane. The sooner you come home, the sooner we can start over again. And the soo__ner I can take you to that secluded beach, and show you all the ways that I love you._

_Come home soon, Jane. I love you._

_All my love,_

_Maura._

I re-read the letter at least ten times, without exaggeration. Over and over again, I read Maura's declaration of love, and all the plans she had for us both.

Even though she couldn't say it to me, I certainly wanted to hurry up and go home too.

I picked up the phone and sent off a text to Maura.

_Missed you today. Thank you for the bathing suit. Thank you even mor__e for the letter_.

A few minutes later, the phone pinged.

_I'm sorry I couldn't bring it myself. Glad you liked the suit. I meant everything I said in that letter, Jane._

_I know._ _Monday when I start aqua therapy, I will with you wrapped all around me- __inside and out._

_Come on video chat._ Maura texted back.

I pulled out the tablet computer and propped it up on a pillow on my lap, then logged in to the chat app. The app rang for a moment before Maura accepted the video call on her end.

"Hi." She grinned at me. She was in the autopsy suite, in full garb with safety goggles on.

"Whatcha got?" I asked.

"Triple homicide. Or perhaps a double murder and a suicide. I'm only on autopsy number two, so I can't say anything definitively yet."

"Fun day," I said with a small laugh.

"Busy day is more like it."

I sat back and for the next hour, watched Maura as she prepped the body and started her autopsy. She made sure the camera on her laptop was facing her, and not the body, to ensure privacy for the deceased. I was sure to stay quiet as she talked into the digital voice recorder for her notes. To anyone else, this would have seemed so weird, but to me it felt normal. I'd seen Maura do hundreds of autopsies, and just watching her work was calming to me. For the first time in more than a year, I felt like I was back at work when things were normal. Normal between Maura and I, and my partners. I watched her work with precision and marveled at her concentration. Just as she was about to begin the Y incision, she stopped, looking up, beyond the screen that was facing her with our video chat. Someone, it seemed, had come down to the autopsy suite.

"Hello, Detective Frost," Maura said with a smile.

"Hiya Doc. I just wanted to check in and see if you had anything for me?" Frost sounded tired, but it was good to hear his voice again. I couldn't see him because he was standing behind Maura's laptop as he spoke to her.

"Not yet, I'm afraid. The first autopsy has a cause of death consistent with a single gunshot wound to the head. I've sent the bullet to ballistics. I'll have a full report for you tomorrow. I'm just starting autopsy number two."

"Okay, thanks," Frost said.

"Barry, why don't you go home and get some sleep? It's going to take me several hours to finish these autopsies, and none of the tests results are going to be back until tomorrow morning anyway."

"Korsak and I are out of leads, we may as well call it a night," Frost acknowledged.

"I'll call if anything alarming comes up," Maura promised.

"Thanks."

"Go get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow. You can't keep working these long shifts, Barry. You need rest."

"Yeah, it'll be good when Jane finally comes back. Maybe Korsak and I will be able to take a day off, for a change."

Maura looked down quickly at the computer screen, to see me grinning.

"It'll be nice to have her back," Maura said.

"It'll be wonderful," Frost said, then whispered "Don't ever tell her, but I miss her."

Maura grinned, careful not to look at the computer screen. "I miss her too. Just a few more months, I'm sure."

"She can't get back here soon enough," Frost said tiredly. "G'night Doc. Call if anything comes up."

"I will, Detective Frost. Have a nice night," Maura replied sweetly.

Maura waited for Barry to leave, then looked back at the computer screen at me.

"See? Everyone misses you."

"I miss everybody too. It was nice hearing his voice again." It _had_ been nice hearing his voice. I had almost forgotten how much fun I had with Frost. I never had the same level of trust with the people in New York that I'd had with Frost.

"You should invite them to come and visit you," Maura suggested helpfully.

"No way, Maura. They're not seeing me like this." I was adamant. That was definitely not happening.

"Why not, Jane?"

"Because I don't like people seeing me when I'm broken. I had to ask for a new partner after Korsak saw me broken the first time. Neither of them will trust me if they see me like this. They'll think I'm weak." Didn't Maura understand that? To work with Frost and Korsak, they had to be able to rely on me. They definitely couldn't rely on me in the condition I was in at that time.

"They don't think that, Jane," Maura said forcefully. "And seeing you in rehab will just reinforce how strong they think you are. Seeing you fighting to become well again will only reinforce respect they have for you."

"No, Maura."

"Jane-" Maura almost sounded like she was whining. It was her "you-know-I'm-right-so-why-argue-this-further" voice.

"Really, can we talk about something else?" I was starting to get testy, and Maura could hear it.

"Well I certainly don't want to argue with you, but believe me, this is going to come up again," Maura said stiffly.

"Who are you, Dr. Gilfried?" I snapped.

"No, but you should talk to her about this stuff if you're not willing to talk to me about it."

I realized that it wasn't so much that I refused to talk about the problem as it was that I refused to talk about it with Maura that had upset her so much. I sighed, and Maura dropped her gaze to look back at the body she was autopsying.

"Hey," I said.

"Hay is for horses, Jane." Maura pursed her lips, and I laughed.

"I'm sorry. You know I've never been good with this emotional stuff. I am working on it though, okay?"

"Okay," Maura said simply and shrugged, our brief spat already forgotten as she got back to work.

"Oh, that's interesting," she murmured.

"What?" I asked.

"This decedent has situs inversus totalis," she said, looking back at the camera to speak to me.

"What?" I asked.

"His internal organs are reversed. His heart is on the right side of his body, which means the bullet wound to the left side of his body is not what killed him. As a matter of fact, the lack of blood flow around the bullet wound indicates to me that the bullet entered his body post-mortem."

"So he was dead before he was shot?" The wheels in my head started turning automatically.

"Yes, it looks like the shooting was done to cover up the other cause of death."

"What is the other cause of death?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," Maura said confidently.

"What were the circumstances of his death? Any witnesses? Any leads?" I asked.

"Even if I knew, Jane, I couldn't tell you. I'm sorry." Maura looked as disappointed as I felt.

"You're right. I got carried away. Sorry," I said sadly.

"Don't be sorry. It's good to see you taking such an interest in all of this. And if you were an employee or somehow involved in the case, you know I'd share with you whatever I could."

"Oh, I know. It's okay, Maura." I looked up at the clock, it was just after eight o'clock. "I know it's early yet, but I have to get to bed. It's going to take me an hour to use the bathroom and put on my pajamas," I laughed.

"You need your rest. Aqua therapy starts next week."

"Yes, I'm excited about that. I'm excited about standing up again tomorrow, too."

"I'm excited for you. Just be careful and don't overdo anything. Don't cause a setback for yourself. Listen to your therapists and doctors." Maura's voice was stern. She was all physician when she said the last part of that.

I saluted at the camera. "Yes ma'am!"

Maura laughed. "Good night, Jane."

"Text me when you get home?" I asked. "I don't care how late it is. I just want to make sure you get home safely."

"I will." She smiled at me, and I realized I was still protective of her, even from a bed in a rehab.

"G'night, Maur. I love you."

"I love you too. Bye, Jane."

I disconnected the video call with a sigh and put the tablet into the drawer in my nightstand. I made sure my phone was out on the nightstand and charging, then I wheeled myself into the bathroom to do my nightly routine.

By nine o'clock that night I was in my pajamas, in bed, and had taken my evening medications. I checked the phone for messages once more, then turned off the light and fell into a calm, deep sleep.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: **Publishing this chapter very early today because my Memorial Day plans suddenly changed and I don't think I'll be home to post at my normal posting time. Sorry if this throws anyone off. By Wednesday I should be back to my normal posting schedule.

If anyone out there reading this has served in, is serving in, or knows someone who serves or served in the Armed Forces, please accept my heartfelt gratitude for your service and the sacrifices you make. I remember you not just on Memorial Day, but year round.

...

Things get a little exciting for Jane in this chapter.

* * *

Maura had sent me a text at one o'clock in the morning after we'd spoken on video chat. It had taken her that long to process all of the autopsies and get home. I worried about the number of hours she was working. For that reason, I didn't ask her to come and see me that week in rehab. She needed some time to herself. We spoke frequently though, and even though neither my mother nor Maura had been able to come and see me until the weekend, I still heard from them both.

The rest of the week went by slowly. Instead of visits from Ma and Maura, I spent the afternoons with Sara, who I was starting to consider more and more of a friend as time wore on. She was still a diligent, competent health care professional, but her stories and her advice were invaluable to me. She had also started sneaking me in cheeseburgers, and I gave her major props for that. I thought for sure there would come a point where I would look at a cheeseburger and go "no, no more. I just can't do it," but that time never came. I'd seen what it was like to not be able to have them, and suddenly I just couldn't get enough.

When Sara wasn't there, I spent a lot of time reading. The tablet computer Maura had bought for me was perfect for passing the time. I read anything I could get my hands on. Novels, news magazines, forensic journals, law enforcement magazines, and more. The articles on the latest discoveries in forensic medicine kept my attention because I could use them to start discussions with Maura. I hoped to impress her, and I figured since I couldn't take her out to fancy restaurants, at least I could talk to her about the stuff she was most passionate about.

Maura and I had a brief visit on Saturday afternoon, which I enjoyed immensely. She arrived around three and talked mostly about work, and I hung on her every word. She got called to a crime scene at about six o'clock, and didn't make it back on Sunday. Even her short visits were like treasures to me, and I was so thankful that she found time to see me despite her very busy life. I looked forward to her visits and I loathed it when she had to leave, but she never left me without a kiss, and that made saying goodbye to her just a modicum easier than it had been before William had shown up in her life.

Ma and my brothers both came up on Sunday for dinner and we watched the football game together again. I asked Frankie about how he was liking it over in Vice, and he answered my questions evasively. I realized he didn't want Ma to know what he was getting into, and I respected that. Though I had talked about it with Frankie and even Tommy at times when I worked in Vice, I tried not to let Ma know the type of work I was doing if I could help it. I did make sure that Frankie knew just how proud I was of him though, and he seemed relieved to know that I wasn't upset that he'd gotten his gold badge so soon after I'd signed mine away to the NYPD as part of my settlement with them.

I enjoyed their visit very much, but I was very eager to start aqua therapy the next morning. Their visit helped the time go by quickly on Sunday though, and for that I was thankful.

When the nurse came to get me up and ready Monday morning, I was actually excited to get to therapy. She helped me into my bathing suit, which was just slightly baggy on me, and then helped me into a sweatsuit before she wheeled me down to the pool on the first floor. She asked me to bring a bra and underwear with me, so I could change out of my wet bathing suit after therapy was over.

Derrick was there along with his assistant. There were a number of floats and other tools in the water, and I took an interest in them almost as soon as I was wheeled over to the in-ground pool.

"C'mon in, Detective. Water's fine," he grinned. His assistant helped get me into a special chair that worked on a mechanical lift, and placed me into the water. The water was about four feet deep where Derrick was standing, and was a bit shallower by where I was lowered in.

"Can you stand up?" Derrick asked.

I pushed up, off the mechanical lift, and stood on shaky legs. Derrick stood about three feet from me. Close enough to grab me if I started to fall, but far enough away for me to try to walk toward him. I wasn't afraid at all, because I knew my upper body strength would let me swim to the side of the pool if my pelvis and legs failed me, but it really was rather daunting to be surrounded by water and not know if I could hold myself up.

Being in the shallower water, I had less water around me to buoy me. I felt awkward and off balance, but took a step forward. By the time I reached Derrick, I was in deeper water, and it was easier to balance.

"We're going to try walking the length of the pool." Derrick slid a float in front of me to lean on if I needed it, and stood next to me. We walked to the other end of the pool excruciatingly slowly. I was doing better than I had been on the parallel bars in the physical therapy room, but I still felt like my pelvis had a mind of its own. More often than not, my pelvis would jut out as I walked, and I would lurch.

"How can I stop doing that?" I asked Derrick, frustrated.

"We need to continue strengthening the muscles in your pelvis. When they're stronger, you'll be able to keep your pelvis from wobbling."

We made it to the other end of the pool, where there was a device in the water.

"This is an aquatic treadmill. It's pretty much like a regular treadmill, but in the water. Can you step on please, Detective?"

"You're just going to keep calling me Detective, aren't you?" I asked with a bit of a bite to my tone. It aggravated me that he called me something I could no longer be.

"Yup," Derrick said grimly, "that's what you are."

"No, that's who I was. Now I'm nobody."

"Nobody? How can you be nobody? I see you standing here in front of me." Derrick sounded truly incredulous, and it made me angrier that he couldn't see where I was going with this.

"Derrick, I had to resign my position with the NYPD. I'm not a detective. What I am is _very_ unemployed."

"I didn't think you would stop being a detective just because you quit. If I quit working here, I'm still a physical therapist by trade," Derrick pointed out, ignoring my tone and keeping his even.

He had a point.

"But if you quit here, you could go look for another job elsewhere. I may not be able to do that."

"Nonsense. In three months, I'm going to have you jogging on a real treadmill that's not in the water. Now get on the treadmill and start walkin',_ Detective_."

I gave him a dirty look and he just pointed at the treadmill. "It's only your time you're wasting, Detective." He said again, but he grinned at me. He knew he'd won that round, and looking back at it, I should have been more thankful for his constant encouragement.

I didn't believe him about being able to jog in three months, but I stood up on the treadmill and started walking when he started it. Within thirty minutes I had started to correct my gait. It was still far from perfect, but I didn't lurch as much. Within an hour, Derrick had raised the speed on the treadmill a bit higher, and I was walking without even thinking about it. I still needed to go at a snail's pace, and I still fell off the treadmill at least three times, but the beauty to aqua therapy is that I was in the water and I basically just had to float back to the treadmill and try again.

At the end of the first hour, Derrick had me get off the treadmill and try walking across the pool again. With no handles to hold on to, it was a bit more difficult, but I slowly made my way across and back again. It was definitely less painful than falling on the mats in the physical therapy room.

We continued doing various exercises for the remaining therapy time, and then I got back on the lift, which took me out of the pool. The assistant smiled at me when, instead of just sliding from the lift into the wheelchair, I stood up and seated myself in the wheelchair instead.

"Might as well get in one more bit of practice, right?" I asked, and she nodded in agreement. I could hear Derrick chuckle from in the water.

The physical therapy assistant smiled at me as she handed me off to a nurse, who took me to the locker room to get changed.

The nurse brought me back upstairs to my room, where Sara was waiting. I took a quick bath, and had just pulled out my cell phone to check for messages from Maura when there was screaming from the end of the hallway.

"OH MY GOD, WILMA! SOMEONE HELP! HELP!"

Barbara. Barbara was screaming from Wilma's room. Sara took off along with several other nurses toward the end of the hall where the reclusive Wilma's room was.

I wheeled myself down there as fast as I could. I could hear one of the nurses bellowing for the defibrillator and a bag of platelets. I could also hear Barbara's hysterical yelling. "WILMA! I JUST WANTED TO SAY GOODBYE TO HER, AND SHE WAS LIKE THAT!"

One of the nurses pulled Barbara out of the room as I waited outside. I looked to one of the aides in the hallway. "Could you please go get Dr. Gilfried?" I said to the aide, gesturing to Barbara.

The aide nodded and ran down toward Dr. Gilfried's office.

"Easy, Barbara. Easy. What did you see?" I asked calmly, the detective in me taking over automatically.

"She's dead, Jane!" Barbara wailed. She was white as a sheet of paper and shaking terribly.

"How do you know?" I kept my tone even, trying to get as much information out of her as I could without her panicking further. Time was of the essence in cases like these. If I didn't get the information from her right then, she'd likely be too traumatized to remember it later when asked.

"She slit her wrists. There was blood everywhere." Barbara grew even paler at the thought, and for a moment I feared she was going to vomit in the hallway.

"You're sure she was dead?" I asked.

"Yes," Barbara whimpered.

"How do you know, though?"

"There was so much blood, Jane." Barbara shivered. "No one could survive with that much blood loss. Even I know that."

"She may not have passed away yet though. The nurses are helping her."

"No," Barbara shook her head as Dr. Gilfried arrived.

"Barbara?" Dr. Gilfried asked gently. "You okay, honey?" Dr. Gilfried took Barbara by the shoulder and walked her down to her office. She gave me a curt nod.

Dr. Grossberg and the house doctor both arrived at the same time and took in the scene. After exhausting all life saving measures, they called the time of death as twelve-oh-seven pm. They started filtering out of the room, and Dr. Grossberg caught my eye.

"Suicide?" I asked quietly.

She nodded. I looked into the room. "We need to secure the scene, Doctor. If there's nothing more that can be done for her, please ask the nurses to walk out and to try not to disturb anything else."

Dr. Grossberg called the nurses out and requested they all stay at the nurse's station until the authorities could get there.

"I'll call it in? I know the medical examiner." I wasn't looking to stick my nose into business that wasn't mine, but I was there and I knew what to do.

"Go ahead," Dr. Grossberg said, as she stood next to me wearily.

I took out my cell phone and called the number for Boston Police Department dispatch, a number that, even almost a year after I had left, I still knew by heart.

"Jane Rizzoli, former Victor 825, I have full notifications. Calling in 10-55 medical examiner case, apparent 10-56 suicide, 11-44 deceased person, medical examiner requested and 11-42 no ambulance needed. My 20 is 1654 North Bennet Street."

The dispatcher repeated back to me, "Civilian call, Jane Rizzoli, 10-55, 10-56, 11-44, 11-42 to 1654 North Bennet Street."

The "civilian" part really felt like a kick in the gut, but I responded to the dispatcher's confirmation anyway: "10-4."

The dispatcher then sent out the radio call as I was on the line with her. "10-55, 10-56, 11-44, 11-42 in progress. 20 is 1654 North Bennet Street. Civilian call in, Victor 825. Which units are responding?"

There was a pause, then the standard radio reply as two units in the area responded.

"Units are en route," the dispatcher told me.

"10-4," I said into the phone. "Fifth floor, once they arrive."

"10-4," the dispatcher said to me, then repeated the floor to the uniform units that were on their way.

"Anything else, Victor 825?" the dispatcher asked.

"Negative," I replied. "Do you need me to stay on the line?"

"Negative. Units will report upon arrival."

"Thank you," I said, then disconnected the call.

I looked over to Dr. Grossberg. "Two uniforms are on their way, and the medical examiner will arrive as soon as she can. For now we just need to keep her room secure, and perhaps someone should address the other patients, just so they stay calm. If they're in their rooms, they probably should stay there so we can keep the scene secure. Barbara is with Dr. Gilfried, but the responding units are going to want to talk to her. They'll probably want to talk to everyone on the floor just to rule out a suspicious death."

Dr. Grossberg nodded and took a deep, shaky breath. I could tell that under the professional facade she was trying to hold it together. I personally thought she was holding it together rather well, considering she was a chief of staff in a rehab facility and not an emergency room physician.

"Was she depressed?" I asked, trying to gather more pieces of the puzzle together.

"I can't tell you that," she said quietly.

"Doctor-patient confidentiality doesn't extend beyond the grave, but you don't have to tell me. You will have to tell the responding detectives though." I said it calmly, because I didn't want to further upset the good doctor.

Dr. Grossberg nodded. She was as pale as Barbara had been when she'd come out of the room.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Grossberg. It's not easy to walk in on a scene like that."

"Now I know why you were such a decorated detective," she said as she took in my unruffled appearance.

"This?" I asked quietly. "A scene like this one wasn't even a small part of the things I saw. Not that I want to belittle Wilma's death. I've just seen much worse. It's okay if you want to sit down, Dr. Grossberg. I'm not going anywhere, and it'll do you some good to sit down and calm down a little before the responding detectives get here."

Dr. Grossberg walked across the hall to the nurse's station and sat down. Several minutes later the first of the uniforms arrived.

"Victor 825?" He asked me.

"Former. Former Victor 825, Jane Rizzoli," I answered.

"What do we got?" he asked, undeterred by my use of the term former.

"Apparent suicide, discovered by another patient. Staff tried to resuscitate and were unsuccessful."

"Medical examiner is en route. Any reason to suspect this is a suspicious death?"

"I didn't know the patient and I did not enter the scene. I can't answer that."

"I'll call in homicide just to be safe. Let them rule it out."

The officer got on his radio and made the call, but he was interrupted halfway through.

"Janie?"

I'd recognize that voice anywhere. I looked up, and just down the hall stood Vince Korsak. Not ten feet behind him was Barry Frost.

* * *

**A/N:** Nominations for the Rizzles Fan Awards close on May 31. Voting will start on June 1 or June 2. Please remember to vote for your favorite fics, authors and fan art. The link for the Rizzles Fan Awards web site can be found in my profile.


	23. Chapter 23

"_Medical examiner is en route. Any reason to suspect this is a suspicious death?" The responding police officer asked me._

"_I didn't know the patient and I did not enter the scene. I can't answer that." _

"_I'll call in homicide just to be safe. Let them rule it out."_

_The officer got on his radio and made the call, but he was interrupted halfway through. _

"_Janie?" _

_I'd recognize that voice anywhere. I looked up, and just down the hall stood Vince Korsak. Not ten feet behind him was Barry Frost._

* * *

_Oh_ _god_, _I_ _don't want them to see me this wa_y. I should have realized that they would respond to my call. I wanted to wheel away and hide in my room, but they'd seen me, and they were there _for me_, so it made little sense to run away. It was just time to face them. It had been long enough. I raised my head and gave them a weak smile.

Korsak strode right up to me and gave me a massive hug.

"Oh Janie, I can't believe it. As soon as we heard the call come over the radio with your badge number, we came straight here. Are you all right?"

"Hey," I said, a little teary eyed at the response my call had gotten. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just called it in. I didn't actually witness anything, or enter the scene."

"Hey," Frost said, coming up behind Korsak. He stuck his hand out to shake mine, and I pulled him down toward me and hugged him. I couldn't help it. I hadn't seen him in so long, and after hearing his little chat with Maura a few nights earlier, I realized I really missed him as much as he had said he'd missed me.

"Hey," I said as he pulled away.

"The Doc is on her way," Frost said, trying to hide his grin.

"The witness that discovered the body is in with the staff psychologist. The witness' name is Barbara. She was being discharged today and went in to say goodbye to the decedent. Found her with her wrists slit. She's pretty distraught. Nurses raised the alarm and the staff doctors tried to resuscitate, but were unsuccessful."

"Did you know the patient?" Korsak asked.

"I know her name was Wilma and she never left her room. Leads me to believe she was depressed, but I never actually saw her or spoke to her. Barbara apparently knew her, which is why she wanted to say goodbye before she was discharged."

"JANE?" Maura's voice called out from down the hall as she ran toward us. "JANE ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?" I almost had to laugh at how frantic Maura looked, until I realized that the news of a death at the rehab where I was staying was probably more than she could handle at the moment.

"Yes, Maura I'm fine. I just called it in," I said when Maura made it down to us.

"I got here as soon as I could." Maura leaned down and hugged me tightly for a long moment, then gave me a peck on the cheek. Maura missed the exchange that Korsak and Frost had behind her, but I didn't miss it. I grinned at them.

"I can't believe this happened here," Maura said as she stepped back to look me over in my wheelchair, carefully cataloging my every feature and making sure I really was as okay as I told her I was.

"I think she was depressed, Maura. I don't think there's anything suspicious about her death," I said quietly. Maura looked gorgeous that day, in a pantsuit I'd never seen her wear before. I started looking her over the same way she was cataloging me. I didn't think there would ever come a time when looking at Maura wouldn't take my breath away.

"We'll need to get your statement, just as a formality," Frost interrupted.

"I know." I snapped back to attention with a broad smile on my face. "I would recommend you get Barbara's statement first. I'm sure they're going to want to sedate her. She's very distraught."

"Okay," Frost replied.

I pointed him down the hall to Dr. Gilfried's office. "Dr. Gilfried took her to her office, I think to calm her down." I pointed to Dr. Grossberg. "Dr. Grossberg is the chief of staff here, and she and the house doctor responded to the call. Dr. Grossberg called the vic's time of death."

"Let's get started then, shall we?" Korsak asked.

"I'll wait for one of you down in my room. It's over there. Maura can show you where it is," I said as I began to turn my wheelchair.

"Jane you don't have to go," Korsak said quickly. "You could stick around. You called it in, after all."

"I don't want to contaminate the scene with my wheelchair," I said quietly.

"Oh. I didn't-" Korask stopped suddenly, looking lost.

"It's okay," I said, cutting him off and putting on a brave face. "You guys have work to do and I'm just going to wait for you in my room. Maura knows where it is. Don't leave without saying goodbye to me." I really did want to stick around, but I knew I'd just be in the way, and the last thing I wanted either of my former partners to think of me as was a pest or a burden.

"We won't. We still gotta get your statement," Korsak said. "We'll be by in a little bit."

I got back to my room and Sara was there, waiting for me.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

"I should be asking you that," she responded, with a quiver in her voice.

"I'm fine. I really am. But you? You saw her, didn't you?"

"Yes," Sara said, running a hand through her hair. I'd noticed she had a nervous habit of doing exactly that. Sara was far more upset than she was letting on.

"Are you all right? I mean, really all right?" I was genuinely concerned about her. She was trying her best to stay professional, but she was having a hard time holding herself together.

"I'm shaken up, but I'm okay, I guess. I mean, I've seen some real messes in my career, but nothing ever prepares you for that."

"No, it's pretty tough no matter how many scenes you come across," I said quietly. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Sara was so pale, and between plunging her hands into her uniform pockets and then running them through her hair, I could see she was getting more agitated instead of less with each minute that passed.

"I'll be fine." Sara sounded like she was trying to reassure herself as much as she was trying to reassure me.

"You will probably have to give a statement to the police, since you were one of the first people to respond. It's just a formality, and it won't take long. Afterward if you want to go home, I would totally understand." I told her this carefully, not trying to get rid of her, but giving her the option to leave.

"I'm not going to leave you here, not after all of this," Sara said resolutely.

"I really am fine, Sara. And I'm thinking that you probably just want to go home and hug your kids."

"I'll stay, Jane. Let's wait and see what happens, okay? I saw Doctor Isles was here," Sara said, changing the subject.

"Yeah, in a work capacity. She seemed pretty upset that this happened here."

"It's bad for the facility. It's an indication that they were not monitoring Wilma as much as they should have been," Sara said carefully.

"What was wrong with Wilma, do you know?"

"She'd lost the use of both of her legs after a fall from a ladder. She had several spinal surgeries to try and regain some motor control, but with each surgery she got worse instead of better. She never left her room. They were going to discharge her because she refused to participate in therapy and the facility needed the bed," Sara said sadly.

"Damn," I said. "How sad."

"Yeah," Sara muttered.

A short time later, Korsak and Frost knocked at the door. "Excuse me, Jane, but I understand that Sara was one of the initial responders?"

"Yeah, Sara, this is Detective Vince Korsak and Detective Barry Frost. They were my partners when I worked in Boston. They need to take a statement from you, as a formality."

Sara shook each of their hands, and they led her out of the room to take her statement. While she was gone, an aide brought my lunch in.

"They're using the dining room as a command center, so we're feeding all the patients in their rooms today," the aide said.

"Thanks." I took the tray from her and rested it on the bedside table.

"If you need anything, use the nurse call button. They'd prefer it if all patients stayed in their room while the police are here investigating," the aide said as she left. I didn't tell her how much I wished I was one of the people out there investigating.

I looked over at my lunch and picked at it, but I'd never been one to eat immediately after leaving a crime scene, and that's essentially what I had just done. It felt so weird. It was second nature to call in the death, and it happened so effortlessly. And when Korsak invited me to stay, I had been so tempted, but I knew I was just going to be in their way.

Based on what I had been told by everyone else, Wilma had been seriously depressed. Barbara didn't strike me as the murderous type, especially since she really had only one functioning hand. My gut told me that Wilma's death was a suicide and nothing more. I was fairly certain that Maura would rule the same way.

Frost and Korsak came back a few minutes later, without Sara.

"We told Sara to come back in a little while. You know we gotta take a statement as a formality," Korsak said.

"Yeah, absolutely," I replied. I didn't even really give Korsak a chance to start asking questions. I just started giving the statement because I'd asked the same questions over and over again myself, and knew the routine by heart.

"I had just been brought back from aquatic therapy and Sara had helped me take a bath," I said, blushing. I hated admitting people had to help me with this stuff. It made me feel weak and vulnerable, two things I never wanted to feel in front of my former partners. "I had just gotten back into my wheelchair when we heard screaming from down the hall. I guess it was about noon. Sara took off down the hall to see what the commotion was about, and I saw a couple of the day nurses follow her down to Wilma's room. It took me a few seconds to recognize the voice, but the person screaming was Barbara, another of the patients here. I knew she was supposed to be discharged today.

"I wheeled myself down to Wilma's room and looked in. Several nurses were attempting to resuscitate Wilma, and someone had apparently called Dr. Grossberg and the house physicians. Dr. Grossberg and the house physician arrived within two minutes of the alarm going out.

"One of the nurses pushed Barbara out of the room, and I waited with her, trying to calm her down and to gather some information from her. She was very distraught. She said she had gone in to say goodbye to Wilma and that she found her bleeding out. She stated that Wilma had slit her wrists.

"At no time did I enter the room. The responding doctors called the time of death and then exited. I asked Dr. Grossberg if she wanted me to call it in, and when she consented, I called dispatch. I asked Dr. Grossberg to have the nurses leave the room and try not to disturb anything. We then waited for the first uniforms to arrive."

"Was the vic depressed?" Frost asked.

"I didn't know her personally. I had never met her or spoken to her. From what I have heard from others, she was very depressed about her injuries and was refusing to participate in treatment, so they were going to discharge her. But that's hearsay, as I did not interact with the vic at any time. The vic apparently never left her room."

"What happened to Barbara?" Frost asked. "After she found the vic, I mean."

"I flagged down a nurse's aide and asked her to go get Dr. Gilfried, the staff psychologist. I figured she would be best for calming Barbara down. Dr. Gilfried came and took Barbara back to her office."

"Did you speak to anyone between when you called dispatch and the unis arrived?" Korsak asked.

"Yes, Dr. Grossberg and I had a brief conversation about the horror of discovering a body like that. Then I sent her over to the nurses station to calm down. She was very professional but I could tell she needed a few minutes to gather her wits."

"I think we're good here, then," Frost said, closing his notebook.

"Nice work, Jane. Saved us a lot of effort by getting everyone together and keeping the scene secure," Korsak added.

"I may be broken, but some things you never forget," I said quietly.

"Hurry up and get fixed," Frost blurted out. "We need you. We're drowning."

I looked over at him, ready to snap until I saw the sincerity in his eyes. He wasn't complaining. He was begging for help. "I'd go back today if I could, Frost."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" He stopped, slumped his shoulders. "Shit, Jane."

"I know, Frost. It's real easy to step in it around here. I did that with the witness, Barbara, the first day. Tried to shake her hand before realizing that's why she was here, because she'd lost her hand."

"How are you doing?" Korsak asked gently.

"I've been taking my first steps. Spent all morning in a pool on a special treadmill. I'm able to stand up on my own now. My pelvis is a little weak though, and I lurch when I try to walk."

"Any pain?" he asked me.

"Sometimes," I said truthfully. "But it's almost a good thing I was in a coma for so long. I missed the most painful parts of my recovery."

"We were scared for you, Janie," Korsak said quietly.

"Thank you for going all the way to Manhattan to get Jo Friday and the turtle. I really appreciate that."

Korsak shrugged. "Couldn't let them stay all by themselves."

"You're a good man, Korsak."

He flushed.

I looked over to Frost. "And it means a lot to me that you both came running over here when you heard that call. I know I didn't leave you guys on the best of terms. I'm really sorry."

"That's all water under the bridge now, isn't it?" Korsak said, gently elbowing Frost in the ribs.

"Um, yeah, absolutely," Frost said.

"It's not, and I can tell, but thanks," I said to them both. "I have a long way to go. I have a lot of recovery I have to do, and I have a long way to go to earn back the trust that both of you gave me. Still, it was great seeing you both again."

"It's good seeing you too," Frost said, and that sounded genuine.

"You both look like shit though. Don't you two ever sleep?" I wisecracked.

"Now THERE'S the Janie we miss!" Korsak exclaimed while Frost made a face.

We were laughing together when Maura stopped by.

"The decedent is on her way to the morgue, and I have an autopsy to do. I don't see any reason why this won't be ruled a suicide though."

We all nodded.

"Jane, are you okay? Do you want me to stay? For something this cut and dry I can always call in Dr. Pike."

Korsak and Frost looked at each other before looking over to me.

"No, Maura, I'm fine. It's sad that she died, but I didn't know her. I'm not all that upset. I hate to say it, but I actually feel good. I feel like I haven't lost all my skills. It's ridiculous, I know," I said as I splayed my hands out in front of me. "I know I just called it in. It's just that I may never have the chance to work again, and today this gave me a little hope. I guess it's wrong though, to take hope from something so tragic."

"Jane, you take hope wherever you can find it, you hear me?" Frost said, and I gaped at him with surprise.

"You did good today," Korsak added.

Maura smiled at me.

While we were standing there, someone knocked at the door. It was Dr. Gilfried.

"Hi, Jane. With everything that was happening I realized we'd missed the start of your session today, and I wanted to make sure you were all right?"

"I'm fine. Is Barbara okay? She was pretty shaken up."

"She'll be all right, I think. Her husband was already on his way to pick her up, so he's going to stay with her until she falls asleep. We all agreed that she should not go home tonight, considering the shock she endured. We'll probably discharge her in the morning though."

"I'm sorry she was so upset. She's a nice lady," I remarked, then remembered the people around me. "Dr. Gilfried, let me introduce you to my old partners, Detectives Vince Korsak and Barry Frost, and Chief Medical Examiner Maura Isles. Guys, this is Dr. Gilfried. She's..." I swallowed hard, not wanting to make the admission but also not willing to show Dr. Gilfried any fear. "She's my psychologist."

Everyone took the doctor's specialty in stride and shook hands.

"It's lovely to meet all of you. Jane speaks so highly of you. It's great that you're all here at once."

The exchanged a few pleasantries before Dr. Gilfried turned back to me.

"Jane, we'll postpone our session for today today until tomorrow, all right? Unless you think you need to come in later this evening?"

"Nah, it's good."

Dr. Gilfried raised an eyebrow at me. "No, really, I'm not avoiding you, Dr. Gilfried. I'm sure we'll be able to fill up an hour tomorrow with everything that went on here today. Right now, I'm just enjoying a visit from my... former colleagues."

"Friends," Korsak corrected quickly, hearing me hesitate.

"Yeah, friends," Frost said forcefully.

"Dr. Gilfried knows I'd do almost anything to get out of talking to her, even though she's pretty awesome," I said, half-jokingly.

"She's a master avoider," Dr. Gilfried added good naturedly.

"We know." Maura, Korsak and Frost said in unison.

I had to laugh. We all did.

* * *

**A/N: **Thank you, as always, to CharlietheCAG for her ninja-beta-skills. They are always appreciated.

This is just a friendly reminder that nominations for the Rizzles Fan Awards close out on May 31, and **voting begins on June 1 or June 2**. Please nominate and vote for your favorite authors, fics and fanart by visiting the link that's on my profile page. Kay, who runs the awards, works really hard on them. Let's show her and your favorite authors/stories/fanart some good ol' Rizzles support! :)


	24. Chapter 24

I sent Sara home after she came back from having her statement taken. Everyone agreed that she needed to go home and be with her family after the events of the day. Sara hesitated at first, but Maura encouraged her to head out. "Jane will be fine," she said confidently.

Shortly after Dr. Gilfried excused herself, Maura left so that she could go and start the autopsy. She gave me a kiss on my cheek, and I know that I blushed. Neither man said anything about the interaction, though I know they both noticed it. Maura and I had certainly been touchy-feely before she'd met William, but I knew that both Frost and Korsak knew we were not the type to kiss each other hello and goodbye like that, even it if it was on the cheek. I could see the wheels turning in both of their heads, but to their credit, neither so much as cracked a joke.

Korsak and Frost stuck around for a little while, and we started shooting the breeze and catching up.

Frost, it seemed, had gotten back together with his ex, FBI agent Anna Farrell, several months ago and things were going well for them. And not to be outdone, but Korsak had also started seeing his first ex-wife, Dana for coffee a few nights a week. While Korsak's budding relationship appeared to be more platonic in nature, for now, apparently Frost's relationship was getting hot and heavy. I was glad they both had someone, and I hoped that their relationships would be able to weather that period of long hours and high stress at work.

I was thrilled for them both, and I was thrilled that they were sticking around to talk to me. I missed the banter and the shop talk, and there was plenty of that.

Before we knew it, it was already dinner time. A nurse stuck her head in. "Ms. Rizzoli, do you want to join everyone in the dining room?"

"You guys probably gotta get back to BRIC, no?" I asked, sadly.

"Nah, we're good. Hey, can you have outside food? I saw a great spucky joint up the road," Korsak said.

"Yeah, I can, but I've got absolutely no cash on me," I said, slightly embarrassed. I wasn't used to having no cash at my disposal, but then again, I didn't really need it at the rehab.

"This one's on me," Korsak said jovially.

"She'll be joining us for dinner, Miss," Korsak said to the nurse, who smiled at us before she left.

"Hey, can you come with us to the restaurant?" Frost asked.

"No, I can't. I wish I could though. Would it be terrible for you to go get it and bring it back here?" I asked, not wanting to put them out or for them to be bored with me and all the things I couldn't do.

"No problem, Jane. We'll get you your usual," Korsak said. "Wait, it's still your usual, right?" he asked, suddenly unsure.

"Yeah, it is." I grinned. "Don't get me a full 15-incher though, I'll never be able to eat it all." Although my appetite was healthy, I still could only eat small portions before I got full. My eyes were often bigger than my stomach.

"Okay. C'mon Frost, let's go get dinner. Jane, we'll be back as soon as we can."

"Take your time and be careful," I said. I'd noticed I said that a lot as people left now. My own accident, though completely beyond my control, had started making me worry for the safety of the people I loved. I did love those two guys, and if the fact that they were treating me to a spucky was any indication, they loved me too.

While they were gone I pulled out my cell phone to check for messages. I had not stopped to look at it after the incident with Wilma had happened. Maura had sent me a few texts during the morning, while I was at therapy.

_I hope aqua therapy is going swimmingly. LOL_

_Thinking __of you._

_Dinner on Tuesday?_

I grinned at the messages. They were so typically Maura. I typed in a quick response:

_It was good to see you today, but the circumstances were sad. I'm sorry you had to come here for that. Korsak and Frost just left to get me __a spucky. They've been here the whole time._

A few minutes later the phone pinged with Maura's reply.

_Great! See? They miss you. So, dinner tomorrow?_

_Yes, please. Are you on call tomorrow?_

_I am not. I am yours for the entire evening._

_Mmm... the __possibilities._ I wrote back.

_Are you flirting with me via text message?_

I blushed.

… _um... yes?_

_Good. I like it._

I exhaled in relief, and then her next message came through before I could reply:

_But we'll need to behave. We'll have to save those __possibilities for when you come home_.

I grinned._ Is that a promise, or a challenge?_

_Both. _

I smiled at Maura's reply before sending my own. _I think Frost and Korsak know there's something between us._

_Why do you think that?_ Maura texted back.

_They saw __you hug and kiss me today and exchanged a "look"._

_Well, there is something between us, isn't there?_

_Absolutely. I think it's called true love._

There was a long pause before Maura responded to me.

_I never knew a text message could reduce me to tears_.

What had I done? I was just flirting with her, joking around. I started to panic.

_I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to make you cry! Please don't cry. What did I do wrong? I'm sorry. Please don't be mad or upset._

_These are happy tears, Jane._

_You scared me._

I realized in that moment that for as easygoing as things had been between Maura and I since we'd spoken after my surgery, the possibility still existed that I could very easily ruin the good thing we were rebuilding between us.

_Sorry. Sometimes context is__ hard to discern in a text message._

_You got that right. I think that's why they made emoticons._

Maura's next response cracked me up, because it came through in three different messages. She had taken so long to type it up that I didn't think she was going to respond to me at all.

_Emoticon is a portmanteau of the English words emotion and icon. They are used to create a pictorial representation of a human emotion in shortened form, making it ideal for text messages. Emoticons are also used frequently in __instant messaging and in other internet-based forums. Emoticons were first used in the 19th century, but started gaining popularity and acceptance in 1982 when they first appeared in a proposal written by Scott Fahlman at Carnegie Mellon University._

I giggled as I read what she wrote. _Thank you, Googlemouth. :)_

_Enjoy your spucky, Jane. What should I bring you for dinner tomorrow?_

_I never thought I would say this... but how about something home cooked and relatively healthy?_

_Who are you and what did you __do with my girlfriend?_

I stopped, looking at Maura's text. She called me her girlfriend. Not her best friend. Not her friend. Not Detective. _Girlfriend._

_You called me your girlfriend._

There was a pause before she replied.

_Is that okay?_

_It's more than __okay. It's wonderful._

_Well, there is something going on between us, right?_

_Best something I've ever experienced._

_Oh Jane, you haven't experienced anything yet. ;)_

I actually heard myself gulp at the reply Maura sent me.

_You should tell Korsak and Fros__t about us._ Maura's next message came through before I could form a coherent reply to her last one. It felt like she had sensed my shock and was steering us into safer waters.

_I want to tell my mother and brothers first, is that okay?_

_It's fine with me. __Whatever you're most comfortable with._

_Thank you._

_I love you, Jane Clementine Rizzoli._

I felt my heart flutter at her text, and tried to school my features because I could hear Frost and Korsak arguing over whether mushrooms belonged on a Philly cheese steak in the hallway as they approached my room with our spuckies.

_I love you too, Maura Dorothea Isles. The boys are back, and they have a spucky with my name on it._

_Have fun, and I'll see you tomorrow. Good night, my love._

_Good night, Maur. Get home __safe._

I guess she couldn't let my adverb use slip, because she texted back: _Safely._

_Thank you, grammar police. See you tomorrow. :)_

Her last text was just an emoticon:_ :-*_

"What are you grinning about?" Frost asked as he set the wrapped sandwich and a bottle of water in front of me.

"Maura sent me a text."

"You two seem to have gotten close again," Frost pointed out.

"Yes, it's great to be back in her life. I missed out on so much, and I'm just happy that she's been so good to me."

"She had a real hard time after you left," Frost said.

"So did you," Korsak said to Frost.

"Like you didn't, old man?"

"I'm sorry I left," I said quietly, interrupting their banter.

"Why did you really leave, Jane?" Korsak asked. He knew perfectly well that New York had never held any kind of interest for me.

"I owe you guys an explanation, but I don't know if I'm capable of it tonight. It's pretty emotional, and I'm just having too much fun with the two of you tonight. Could we just enjoy our spuckies and the company of each other? Just for tonight?"

"Yeah, Jane, don't worry about it. You don't owe us anything," Korsak said, waving his hand dismissively.

"Yeah, I do. And I promise you I'll tell you. Just... in due time, okay?"

"Hey Jane, you know you don't have to worry about talking to us, right? Neither of us will judge you. I mean, you still don't have to say anything tonight, but we're here for you," Frost added kindly.

"You've always been there for me, Frost. You too, Korsak. Thank you both."

"How's that sandwich?" Korsak asked, changing the subject, which seemed to relieve us all from the growing tension in the room.

"Wonderful. Thank you." It really was good. I hadn't had a spucky since before I moved to New York, and it was just as good as all the cheeseburgers I'd been eating.

"We gotta put some meat back on those bones," Korsak said.

"Yeah, well, I've only been off the feeding tube for about two weeks. Plus with all the therapy I'm doing, I burn more calories than I take in."

Frost paled at the mention of the feeding tube and I decided to have some fun.

"What's the matter Frost? The idea of a feeding tube grosses you out?" I asked as I took an obnoxiously-sized bite of my spucky.

"No, no, sorry Jane, it's fine." He took another bite of his spucky to prove his point. It was tit-for-tat in this little game I was playing.

"Yeah, the feeding tube was nothing. Did you know they had to remove my uterus? And I had a hole cut into my skull? And I had a urinary catheter too. Oh, and my bowel got resected."

Frost paled further, and Korsak started to laugh. He too knew where this was headed.

I took another bite of my spucky, giving Frost a moment to savor a few more biets of his sandwich and to think that I'd given up. I finished chewing it before I dealt the final blow.

"Hey Frost, you know if I eat too much, the food will leak out of the incision left by my feeding tube? Like my stomach will actually leak. Outside of my body." I shrugged as I said it, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Oh god," Frost gasped as he jumped up and ran into the bathroom.

Korsak gave me a high five when we heard Frost start to vomit in the bathroom.

"Man, I miss this," I said quietly.

"Well, get better and come back, Jane. Then you can make Frost puke all you want," Korsak said with a grin as we listened to poor Frost retch behind the closed door.

"I'm trying."

"I'm just glad to see you still have your sense of humor," Korsak said.

"It comes and it goes," I said. "I actually surprised myself with that. I've never joked about my injuries like this. It's almost... freeing."

"They say laughter is the best medicine." Leave it to Korsak to be so positive. He always had been.

"For me, getting better and getting a job is going to be the best medicine," I said quickly. "Once that happens, I can laugh all I want. But not until then."

"A job with BPD in the homicide unit?" Korsak asked, the hope in his voice almost too much for me to bear.

"Yes. If you guys will have me," I said, just as hopeful as Korsak had just been.

"You keep going the way you're going, and you won't have any problem with that. I'll make sure of it myself."

"Are you sure you want to have me back? I mean I left for New York of all places." I looked down at my sandwich, ashamed that I'd abandoned my partners the way I had.

"We're not fully staffed until you come back, Jane." Korsak took one of my hands in his and held it for a moment.

I looked back up and smiled at him and he frowned when his cell phone started to vibrate. "Dammit!" He let go of my hand to picked up his phone.

"Korsak." He paused and listened to the caller. "Right. We'll head out there now."

He looked at me regretfully. "Janie, I'm sorry, but we're both on duty and we just got a call."

"I understand. Thanks for spending the afternoon with me. It was great. Thanks for dinner, too. When I'm better, I'm treating you two."

"Text me your new number, will you? Maybe if I ever get some free time I'll come visit you again."

"Sure," I said, smiling.

Korsak got up and walked over to the bathroom and knocked on the door. "C'mon buddy, we got a body."

I wrapped up Frost's spucky and put it back in the bag for him, then handed it to Korsak.. "He might be hungry later."

"Yeah, and if not, I'll eat that," Korsak said. "No sense in letting a good spucky go to waste."

Frost came out of the bathroom and straightened his tie. He tried to give me a dirty look, but he was too embarrassed to accomplish much. And if I would have squinted, I was pretty sure I could have seen the smile in his eyes. It was mean of me to play that kind of trick on Frost, but it was also the old Jane, the Jane I thought I had lost, that had allowed me to do it. Frost realized that we'd all seen a glimmer of the old Jane, and he couldn't be mad at that.

"You okay there, Frost?" I asked, smirking.

"Uh yeah. Nice seeing you, Jane," he said, his voice a bit hoarse from being sick.

"Come back soon. Then I can tell you all about the rods and screws and pins and plates that they used to rebuild my pelvis."

Frost paled again and stepped out of the room while Korsak laughed.

"See you soon, Janie."

"Bye, Korsak."

I finished my spucky slowly, enjoying every last bite of it. It was just after eight pm, and I wheeled myself into the bathroom. I changed into pajamas and wheeled myself to the bed, where I got myself in without a problem. I noticed how much more flexibility I had in my hips and legs, and how much stronger my arms had gotten. The tasks that had been nearly impossible just a few weeks ago were suddenly becoming easier and easier.

I had been tempted to stand up to get out of the wheelchair and into the bed, but even I didn't want to push my luck with that. Maybe I'd try it tomorrow, I thought with a smug grin.

The night nurse came by a little while later with my evening meds and asked if I wanted a sedative. "We're asking because of everything that happened today," she said quietly, as if there was someone else around that could possibly hear us.

"Oh, no thanks. I'm okay," I said. I was more than okay. I'd had a great day, even if it pained me to think that I'd had a great day at the expense of Wilma's suicide. I'd walked in the pool, stood up to get into my wheelchair, used my detective skills, saw Maura, had Maura refer to me as her girlfriend, started to make peace with and ate dinner with Frost and Korsak, and then made Frost barf. Overall, this was a five-star day for me.

No, I wasn't going to need a sedative that night. I was flying high, and there was nothing that was going to bring me down from that high.

* * *

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	25. Chapter 25

**A/N:** Ever so slowly, Jane's life is beginning to change. Thanks for sticking with her (and me) on this journey. :)

* * *

I said goodbye to Barbara the following morning at breakfast. She still seemed slightly out of it, as if they'd given her something for her anxiety.

"I just want to thank you for welcoming me, my first time here in the dining room." I spoke to her in hushed tones, because the gravity of the situation clearly called for that.

"Oh, you're welcome Jane. Thanks for yesterday. It was... terrifying. But you seemed to know exactly what to do, and that helped me a lot."

"I'm so sorry, Barbara. I could tell you that with time, it gets easier to deal with what you saw, but right now, while it's so raw in your mind, that's not what you want to hear."

Barbara nodded, clearly getting ready to cry.

"Are you going to continue with Dr. Gilfried?" I asked.

"Yes. And not just for yesterday. I still have issues with the loss of my hand, too."

"It's good that you're going to stick with her. Don't tell her I said this, but she's a good person."

Barbara offered me a weak smile. "I just can't wait to get home, Jane. I wound up in this place from one of my worst nightmares coming true, and now I'm leaving here with a fresh nightmare tattooed onto my brain."

"It's going to be okay, Barbara. Tonight you're going to get home and your kids and husband are going to be waiting for you. Tonight you're going to be so happy to be home that you won't have time to think of what happened. Tonight is going to be all about taking the first steps into your new life."

Barbara nodded. "Wilma never got that chance."

"Wilma denied herself that chance, Barbara. That's not your fault. And it's not something for you to feel guilty about, either."

"Dr. Gilfried said that too."

"See? Great minds think alike," I said, giving her an encouraging smile. "Now eat something. Your kids are going to be so happy to see you that you're going to need all of your strength." I pushed her plate toward her gently.

Barbara nodded and took a bite of her eggs. We finished up breakfast in silence. Right before it was time for me to head down to physical therapy, I gave Barbara a hug. I always said I wasn't a hugger, but the truth was, deep down, I always had been. In retrospect, I realized I just never made it a habit of hugging Maura's dates, and now I understand why.

"I'm not good at talking about feelings and stuff, but if you need someone to talk to, you're welcome to get in touch. I'll be here for a while yet."

"Thanks. And I'm going to keep an eye out on the news. A detective like you doesn't stay out of the news for very long," Barbara said almost cheerfully.

"Well, let's hope I stay out of the news. I only seem to make the news when I get hurt or something awful happens."

"Okay, that's true. But I do hope you will return to a long and happy career, Jane." Barbara squeezed my forearm with her good hand.

"Thanks, Barbara. Take good care of yourself."

I wheeled myself down to physical therapy, though I still had a nurse next to me. I was getting tired of the chaperones.

I had regular therapy that morning, and if I do say so myself, I rocked it on the parallel bars. I was also able to keep up the pace on the treadmill, even if it was only set to one mile per hour with no incline. I think I even impressed Derrick, though he'd never admit to that. He just seemed less grumpy at the end of our session, but to me that meant he was satisfied with the effort I put in. I was thrilled to be able to stand upright for that long and actually walk, even if it was slow and cumbersome and I still had a lurch in my step.

"I'm going to talk to Dr. Grossberg today, and see if we can't get you training with a walker," Derrick told me near the end of our session.

"A walker? I don't want to toddle around with some old person gadget!" I said, probably more loudly than I should, based on the dirty look the old woman getting her therapy across the room gave me.

"Would you rather sit around in this chair forever?" Derrick asked, flabbergasted at my reaction.

"No. But does it have to be a walker? I mean, it's..."

"It's what, Detective?" Derrick asked.

I scowled at him. "It's not badass."

"I'll see if I can find you a badass walker then," he laughed.

I wheeled myself back to my room, telling the nurse that came to pick me up I knew the way and could manage myself. She shrugged, and I heard her follow me back to the room a few steps behind me.

As always, Sara was waiting for me.

"Hey," I said as I wheeled myself in. "How are you today? Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine. I was a little shaken up yesterday, but I'm fine today." Sara definitely looked calmer, and her response to me was far more confident than it had been last night when I had asked her the same question.

"It's not easy, seeing that. I'm glad you decided to go home and be with your family. It's probably the best thing you can do for yourself after experiencing something like that," I reassured her.

"Are you okay?" Sara asked me.

"It sounds insensitive, and I don't mean it that way, but I really only saw Wilma from the doorway, and it wasn't really unlike any crime scene I'd been to before, so I'm largely unaffected by it. I do feel bad for Barbara, and for those of you that tried to help Wilma."

"How long did it take you to become numb to it?" Sara asked.

"I never really became numb to it. I'm not heartless, even if I seem like it sometimes." I smiled, letting Sara know I was partly joking. "But after so many years of scenes like that, you sort of just learn to cope with it. You still react to it, and you still feel for the victims, but you learn not to let it impact you quite as much as it should."

Sara considered my words for a moment. "It's like in nursing, when they tell you not to get attached to your patients. You still feel for them and try to sympathize, but you distance yourself from it."

"Exactly."

"How about a bath, Jane?" Sara asked, and just like that, the conversation was over.

Sara got the tub set up for me, but by this point I was pretty much ready to do everything on my own, and she let me. When I came back out dressed and ready for lunch a little while later, she smiled at me.

"You know, you're not going to need me much longer." Sara said this proudly, and not sadly.

"As happy as it makes me to regain my independence, I'm sure going to miss you," I said.

"You're a fighter, Jane. Dr. Isles was right. Other patients would still be bed bound at this point. But not you. Don't ever let that go."

I smiled at her and wheeled myself down to lunch. It was eerily quiet in the dining room. I situated myself next to Amanda, who gave me a weak smile.

"Hey," I said quietly. "Are you okay?"

She shrugged, and pushed the food around on her plate.

"I'm sorry about Wilma. Were you friendly with her?"

Amanda used two fingers to pinch together. A little bit, I assumed she meant.

"Then I'm sorry for your loss," I said gently.

She shrugged again, and put some food in her mouth. I looked around at the few residents present for lunch. Everyone seemed equally shell shocked. My outwardly calm demeanor made me feel like more of an outsider than I already was. For the first time since I arrived at the rehab, I really wished I could just get up and go home.

Of course, you need a home to be able to do that, and even though Maura had offered me hers, and even though I wanted more than anything to go be with her, I wondered if we had made that decision a little too fast.

I arrived at Dr. Gilfried's office for my afternoon appointment feeling a little lost. I knew this was something I should probably just talk to her about; that this was specifically the reason why I was being made to see her, but I was so unsure of what, exactly I was feeling that I didn't know how I was going to approach her with this stuff.

I knocked on the door and entered when she invited me in.

"Hi Jane," she said. She looked tired.

"Hi Doc. How are you?"

"Tired," she answered honestly. "It's been a long two days."

"I kind of understand where you're coming from. This must be hard on you. On all of the staff here, really."

"It is," Dr. Gilfried agreed. "But how is it affecting you?"

"I'm okay. I keep telling people this, and I don't want to sound insensitive, but Wilma's death really isn't having an effect on me. It's not that I don't feel bad that she died, but between the fact that I'd never met her and the fact that my experience as a homicide detective has shown me much worse, I'm really not as shocked as everyone else seems to be."

I looked up at Dr. Gilfried and tried to show her that I wasn't cold or heartless. I was just removed from the situation.

"That being said though, I realize that Wilma's suicide is having a huge impact on everyone here. And I do feel bad that she died."

"I think you're processing this like a professional, Jane. I think you would have been more distraught about this if you'd actually known Wilma. So the defense mechanisms you used as a detective have kicked in, and you seem to be handling it well."

Dr. Gilfried's response was reassuring.

"I think I feel more guilty about being calm about it than anything else. I feel bad that everyone at breakfast and lunch was so distraught. I felt like an outsider at lunch today. Like everyone was looking at me and asking why I wasn't upset. I feel like I came off as insensitive."

Dr. Gilfried tilted her head as she pondered my reply before coming up with her own. "I think everyone is so wrapped up in their own thoughts and feelings right now, that they haven't even realized that you're not as upset as they are."

"Maybe," I replied, not really convinced.

"And does it matter, really, what other people think of you?"

"No. I guess not."

"Everyone here is going to process Wilma's death differently. Your training and your experience has you better prepared for this than everyone else, including some of the staff here. You sympathize with Wilma and the people who knew her, and that's all that matters."

Dr. Gilfried was gentle with what she was saying, which made it easier for me to take her words to heart.

"Okay." I said.

"Tell me how it felt to see your old partners yesterday," Dr. Gilfried said to change the subject.

"It was... so many things. Wonderful. Terrifying. Exciting."

"Why terrifying?" Dr. Gilfried looked genuinely puzzled.

"Because they saw me weak and broken and vulnerable. And if I ever get the chance to go work with them again, they're going to remember me this way, and they may not trust me enough to protect them when the time comes," I said sadly.

"Jane, you've been injured before, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Did they stop trusting you after those injuries?"

"No."

"So what makes you think they wouldn't trust you now?"

I felt my defenses go up, but realized that Dr. Gilfried wasn't pressing all that hard. It wasn't her I had to worry about. It was myself and my reaction to her questions.

"Because I left. I picked up and walked out on them, and didn't tell them why. I didn't trust them to tell them how much I was hurting. I just picked up and took off. And then I got hurt, and now I feel like they look at me like someone totally different. They know I'm not the same Jane I was before this accident."

"Why aren't you the same Jane?" Dr. Gilfried's tone was clinical but not judgmental. I had to keep reminding myself that we were simply having a conversation, and not to try and decipher her every question.

"Because I can't even walk, let alone chase a suspect. I can't protect them if they need it. And after the way I left them, why would they want to protect me?"

"I think you're misjudging them. I saw you interact with them yesterday. I also understand that they showed up here before they were even called, because they heard it was you on the radio calling the incident in. Doesn't that show that they care for you and want to protect you?"

"But-"

"Jane, I don't think it's your old partners that are mistrustful. I think it's you. I think you were too scared to tell them about your feelings for Maura, so you ran away. I don't think it has anything to do with them. Why wouldn't you trust them with your feelings the same way you always trusted them with your life?"

I hated it when she made so much sense, but she was correct in her assessment. She wasn't even snide about it, which made me both hateful over how insightful she was and incredibly thankful that she was kind in the way she delivered her insight.

"I don't know." I was being honest. "I've never done feelings well."

"Are they not trustworthy?"

"Of course they are. They're some of the most trustworthy people on this earth," I said forcefully.

"Are you afraid they'll judge you?"

"No. I mean, we all tease each other, but we've always done that in good fun. As far as I know, nobody's ever been genuinely hurt by it."

"So what is it, then?" Dr. Gilfried pressed me a little harder for an answer, but I really didn't have one.

"I don't know."

"Maybe the reason you don't know, is because there is no valid reason for you to not trust them with your feelings?"

I sighed. "Maybe."

"Don't you think you owe it to them to talk to them? Especially if you plan to go work with them again?"

"I don't know if I'm going to work with them again." I felt myself closing up. I didn't want to talk to anyone about my feelings, but talking to Frost and Korsak about my trust issues seemed truly awful. I tried to think of something to change the subject but failed miserably.

"Jane." Dr. Gilfried scoffed. "Really?"

"That's my line!" I deflected.

"Jane, did you do your assignment with the three hopes for the future?"

"Yes." I handed her my notebook, hopeful that we were dropping the subject for now.

"Before I even look at this, tell me what those hopes were."

"Make things right with Maura, get better, and go back to work."

"Haven't you already made things right with Maura?" Dr. Gilfried looked at me like I'd cheated on my assignment, but I really hadn't.

"Sort of. I mean, we finally told each other we had feelings for each other, and Maura definitely wants to try being a couple, but I'm terrified that if I can't go back to being the detective I was, that she's going to get bored with me. She wants me to go live with her when I get out of here, and I'm afraid of that. I'm admitting it. I am terrified of going to live with her. I want to go live with her, but she and I haven't been especially close since she met William, and that was two years ago. Even without these injuries, a lot changes in two years."

"You could always go live with her and move out if things don't work out," Dr. Gilfried pointed out.

"I don't even want to think about that." I shuddered at the thought.

"Just the fact that you say that makes me think that you're going to work hard enough to make sure that things do work out. Isn't this exactly what you've wanted, Jane?"

"Yes. But aren't we moving rather quickly?" I hated how unsure of myself I sounded.

"Have you asked Maura that?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Perhaps you should. Perhaps you should talk about these fears with her. After all, if you're going to pursue a relationship with her, you should be talking about these things."

"I guess so." I was still unsure. The last thing I wanted to do was to make things between Maura and I strained in any way.

"Jane, what if I had a way for you to test the waters a bit?" Dr. Gilfried asked me brightly.

"What do you mean?" Instantly I was wary of her.

"Well, if I can get you medical clearance, I could get you what we call a weekend pass. And you could go home and spend the weekend with Maura. It's just a weekend, but it will give you a taste of what it will be like to go home to her."

"You can do that?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yes. And I think you've reached a point emotionally where this would be a good experience for you. I also think that, based on your progress notes, you're independent enough to spend a weekend outside of the rehab. You just can't overdo it."

"Really?" The idea excited me. Hadn't I just wished to be able to go home at lunch?

"Yes. And your experience over the weekend would allow us to gauge just how ready you are for outpatient therapy."

"That sounds... wonderful." I was so excited I almost jumped out of my wheelchair and danced, until I realized that not only could I not jump up and dance, I also didn't normally like to dance. That's just how excited I was about the prospect though.

"Well, I still have to clear it with Dr. Grossberg. But your performance yesterday getting everyone settled after Wilma's passing probably bought you some brownie points with Dr. Grossberg anyway."

"But not with you, huh?" I smirked at her.

"No, with me too. But you know I can't tell you that," she said with a genuine smile.

"You could, it would boost my ego," I pressed.

Dr. Gilfried laughed. "You took care of Barbara, and even looked out for Dr. Grossberg. You handled the situation like the homicide detective you still are, Jane. And then you interacted with your former coworkers, even had dinner with them, and you are emotionally stable today. You figure out how many brownie points that's worth."

"It was a good day, yesterday," I said. "For me, I mean."

Dr. Gilfried looked at her watch. "Hang tight. Let's see if we can't get Dr. Grossberg to stop in for a moment."

She picked up her office phone and dialed an extension. Amazingly, Dr. Grossberg didn't have a patient and was willing to come down to see us after she listened to what Dr. Gilfried had to say. She arrived a few minutes later. She too looked exhausted.

"Hi Jane," she said as she walked in.

"Hi Dr. Grossberg. How are you?"

"Okay," she answered, noncommittally. She definitely didn't look okay. She looked like she'd been grilled by a panel of very angry professionals regarding yesterday's events.

"I hear we may have a weekend pass up for grabs for you?" she continued, interrupting my thoughts.

"Yes, please." I was so eager I was almost ashamed of myself.

"Well, I have your chart here, and Derrick is happy with the progress you're making. Still, it's a bit early to try going home."

"But it's only Tuesday, and I have the whole week of therapy before the weekend," I added, hopefully.

"True. Derrick indicates he wants to start you on a walker in the morning, but you're hesitant, because, I quote 'It's not badass enough'. How do you expect me to send you home if you can't maneuver around your home?"

"I never said no. I just said exactly what he said in his notes. It's not badass. I've been doing really well in physical therapy. I did well in aqua therapy yesterday, and today I rocked the parallel bars. I can get up out of my wheelchair on my own, and I'm able to take care of washing myself and using the toilet on my own too. I can even get into and out of bed on my own."

Dr. Grossberg looked at me thoughtfully, then looked back at the chart in her hands. She leafed through a few pages.

"How's your upper body strength, Jane?" she asked me cryptically.

"Better than ever," I answered, truthfully.

"Hang on a second." Dr. Grossberg got up and walked out, and when she returned a few minutes later, she had a pair of metal crutches in her hands.

"I'm afraid these aren't badass, Detective, but I think they're a step up from a walker. Can you stand up, please?"

I felt Dr. Grossberg's and Dr. Gilfried's eyes on me as I got myself up and out of the wheelchair. I cringed at how unsteady I felt, but no one seemed to be in any kind of a hurry to make me sit back down.

Dr. Grossberg adjusted the height on both crutches, and helped me put my arms into the cuffs at the top.

"I'd rather you build your pelvic wall back up, and since a walker won't give you the same exercise as these crutches would, maybe they're the better idea anyway. Could you try to walk over to Dr. Gilfried's desk for me, please?"

I straightened my back and walked the fifteen feet to Dr. Gilfried's desk, leaning very heavily on the crutches. Dr. Grossberg walked right beside me the entire time. The lurch in my gait was terribly noticeable, but didn't make me fall over. It took me forever to make it over to the desk, but I did it. By the time I got there, I was out of breath and relying completely on the crutches, but I did it.

"Mhm," Dr. Grossberg murmured, watching carefully. "Come back, please." She walked beside me once again, and once again I proceeded at a snails pace, but I was doing it.

I walked back to my wheelchair, and stood in front of her. I wasn't even tempted to sit back down, even though I knew I needed to.

She smiled at me. "Here's the deal. You use those crutches as much as you can this week, and I'll let you know on Thursday if you can go home after physical therapy on Friday. If I approve it, you can spend Friday and Saturday night at home, and you'll have to be back here by the end of visiting hours on Sunday."

"That's ten o'clock, right?" I almost couldn't ask because I was grinning so hard.

"Yes," Dr. Grossberg confirmed.

"Sweet!"

"It's not approved yet, Jane. I'm concerned about your stability and want to make sure you can ambulate well enough on those crutches. You'll need to also participate in all of your therapies and continue eating well. I will not reward you for stubbornness. Understood?"

"Yes, Doctor. Thank you." I understood her every word, and I was determined not to let her down.

"Don't thank me yet." She said cautiously. "You're doing well on those crutches right now, but trust me when I tell you that they're going to be exhausting to use, especially the first few days. Just take it slowly and be very careful."

"I will," I said solemnly. "Thank you at least for getting me out of that wheelchair. Can I walk back to my room after my appointment with Dr. Gilfried?"

"As long as you have a nurse with you and you feel up to it, you can walk anywhere you want on the floor. Don't overdo it though. It's tempting to push yourself. Don't hurt yourself and ruin your chances of going home this weekend."

"Okay," I said, grinning.

"Thank you, Dr. Grossberg," Dr. Gilfried said as Dr. Grossberg left.

"So?" Dr. Gilfried addressed me. "Happy?"

"Thrilled," I said, and it was the truth.

""You should call Maura so she can prepare."

"I'm supposed to have dinner with her tonight. I'll tell her when she gets here, if that's okay? This kind of news should be shared in person. She's going to flip out when she sees these crutches!"

"That's fine," Dr. Gilfried nodded and smiled.

Sara stuck her head in and saw me standing with the crutches.

"Hey hey, look at you!" she grinned.

"I might get to go home for the weekend!" I actually squealed. Both Sara and Dr. Gilfried laughed.

"That's great, Jane. Are you ready to go back to your room?"

I looked over to Dr. Gilfried. "Any homework, Doc?"

"Nah, go have fun with your girlfriend." She waved her hand at me and smiled.

"Thanks," I said. I started walking out, slowly, and Sara pushed the wheelchair next to me.

"Girlfriend?" she asked as we walked down the hall.

"Maura," I said, smiling. "Is that-" I was going to ask her if she was okay with that, but then I realized that Sara worked for Maura. It wasn't up to Sara to be okay with that.

"What a lucky catch, Jane," Sara said with a smile. "You'll be happy to know she's waiting for you in your room."

I beamed at her. "She's here already?"

"She got here not long after lunch. She didn't realize you had an appointment with Dr. Gilfried."

"Oh, I didn't mean for her to have to wait." I was disappointed that Maura had been there for so long and I missed that time with her.

"I think she thinks you're worth the wait," Sara said, as we turned into my room. "I'll come by later, give you guys some time to talk, okay?"

"Sure, thanks," I said to Sara. "Hi!" I said to Maura as I slowly made my way into the room.

"Look at you! Look at you!" Maura jumped up from the guest chair and ran over to me, peppering my face with kisses. She was just as excited as I was.

"Maura!" I laughed when she wouldn't stop kissing me all over. "Maura!"

She continued unabated, and my laughter was starting to throw me off a bit. As much as I was enjoying her kisses, it was getting harder and harder to keep my balance.

"Maura please, I can't-"

"Okay. Okay," she said, calming herself down and steering me over to the bed so I could sit. She planted herself right next to me. "But you're not in the wheelchair!"

"Nope. The best part is if I can handle the crutches this week, I can come home for the weekend, on a pass."

"Really?" The hope in her voice was so uplifting. She looked as thrilled as I felt.

"Yes," I grinned at Maura.

"Oh god, I hope you don't already have plans?!" I realized suddenly.

"No, I'm- I was supposed to be on call, but I'll just get Dr. Pike to cover. Really, I can't believe you're coming home!" Maura actually clapped her hands together in anticipation. I couldn't help but soak up the joy she was feeling, even if I had to temper it a bit.

"No, it's _possible_ for me to come home for the weekend. I kinda have to earn it," I said. "And it's just for the weekend," I reminded her.

"What do you have to do?" she still looked completely excited, but she got right down to business.

"Well, use the crutches all week and not overdo it. Participate in all of my therapies. Keep eating."

"Sounds like nothing you can't handle," Maura said confidently.

"It sounds easier than it is," I said, "but I'm going to try."

"I'll tell your mother and we'll have everyone over for Sunday dinner!" Maura gushed.

"No! Don't tell her," I said quickly. "I mean, what if I can't make it? What if something happens and I can't come home for the weekend? She'll be so disappointed."

"She would understand," Maura reassured me. I wasn't so sure about it though. Ma could harp on just about anything, and I didn't want her to be disappointed or aggravated. On the other hand though, it would be fantastic to go home and see everyone.

"We could have everyone over for Sunday dinner and celebrate Frankie's gold badge," I pointed out.

"We could definitely do that," Maura said. "Why don't we invite everyone over, and we'll just tell them that the plans are tentative until... when will you know if you can come home?"

"Thursday afternoon."

"Good. So we'll just let everyone know that we'll give them a definitive answer on Thursday night." Maura shrugged, like it was the simplest solution in the world.

"Okay," I said, grinning.

"Let me make a couple of calls, so we can make sure everything is ready. You'll come home Thursday night?"

"No, Friday after physical therapy. Lunch time, until 10pm on Sunday." I wished I could spend a long weekend with Maura, but I'd have to be happy with what I could get, provided I could actually earn the pass.

"Oh, too bad you couldn't come Thursday instead," Maura seemed genuinely disappointed.

"It's nice that you want me to come home," I said quietly. "I actually am supposed to talk to you about that, about coming home to your house. Permanently, I mean."

"Oh really?" Maura asked, worry written across her face.

"Yeah," I said, solemnly.

Maura frowned, worry wiping away the smile she'd had for me just seconds before.

* * *

**A/N:** Thank you, as always, to CharlietheCAG for betaing this chapter.

Also, this is my twice-weekly reminder to you that voting is now open for the Rizzles Fan Awards. Now is your chance to vote for your favorite authors, fanfics, and fan art. Visit rizzlesfanawards**.**wordpress**.**com to check out the rules and place your votes. There are lots of talented authors and artists up there, and each of us (I'm one of them) would be so happy to receive your vote. Thank you for voting!


	26. Chapter 26

_"It's nice that you want me to come home," I said quietly. "I actually am supposed to talk to you about that, about coming home to your house. Permanently, I mean."_

_"Oh really?" Maura asked, worry written across her face._

_"Yeah," I said, solemnly._

_Maura frowned, worry wiping away the smile she'd had for me just seconds before._

...

"What-" Maura stumbled a bit over her words. "What did you need to talk to me about?"

"It's just that I'm a little overwhelmed. I'm really looking forward to coming home, and to being with you. And one of the reasons they're going to let me come home is so we can kind of test the waters a little bit. But you need to understand something."

"What?" Maura looked on the verge of tears.

"No, just, please calm down Maura. I just, I feel like we're rushing a little bit. A month from now, I'll probably be ready to come home and start on outpatient therapy. If I come to live with you, that means we have to get over two years of changes, and differences between us. You were with William for a year and a half, and then I left for New York for six months. That's a long time. I'm just afraid that we're going to rush into this and you're going to realize that I'm just not the Jane I was before William came into your life."

"I can… understand where you're coming from," Maura said, choosing her words carefully. "But you also need to understand something. I've had nine months of missing you to think about this, and three months since your accident to plan for this. I have had a long time to realize just what I missed out on by not telling you how I really felt. And I really, really want to try being together with you. I want to make you as comfortable as possible though. All I'm asking of you right now is to come home to me. I can set up the guestroom and make it yours. You do not have to come home to my bed, you do not have to do anything you don't want to. But I think that we still trust each other enough to make a start of this." Maura spoke firmly, decisively. She knew what she wanted, and she wanted me. It made me happy but fearful at the same time. I still feared she wanted the old me, and I knew deep down that I wasn't that person anymore. I wanted to be her, but she was becoming increasingly harder to find within myself.

"Maura, it's not that I don't trust you. I'm just trying to put us on the same page. I'm telling you this because I want to be honest with you. I'm telling you this because I just don't want you to think that Badass Jane with the badge is coming back to live with you. Broken Jane is coming to live with you," I said sadly.

"You mean Temporarily Out of Order Jane. But the fact of the matter is, I don't care which Jane comes back to live with me. Just come home. Enjoy this weekend, and see that despite how much time has passed, not as much as you think has changed. When you do come home on a more permanent basis, we'll try dating. If you truly, honestly think that we're no longer compatible with one another, then we'll simply make other arrangements."

I looked over at Maura. She looked more hurt than anything else.

"Maur-"

"For the record," she interrupted, "I still think that we're compatible with one another. Very compatible."

"I do too," I reassured her. "And nothing I just said means that I don't want to give us a try. I'm just afraid that things won't be exactly as you want them to be when I first show up at home, and I'm trying to give you a realistic expectation of life with me. That's all. But that doesn't mean I don't want to try."

I watched Maura process what I'd told her, and softly added, "I really do want to try, and I hope more than anything else that you will see that no matter how much I've changed, my love for you hasn't."

"Okay," Maura said, looking a little more relieved.

"Maura?"

"Yes, Jane?" Maura sounded afraid of whatever I could possibly say next.

"I love you. I hope that you know that. Despite everything, despite how scared I am of losing you, I want this. But I want to go into this openly and honestly."

She sighed, relieved that I wasn't springing something else on her. "I appreciate that. And I do know that you love me. I love you too, Jane."

"So are we okay?" I asked.

"Yes, of course." Relief continued to wash over her features, but I could still see she was tense. More tense than she should have been. I felt guilty for dropping such a bomb on her.

"You're not angry?" I asked.

"No, of course not," she answered, the certainty evident in her voice. Still, something was bothering her.

"Upset?" I tried.

"No." Ah, there it was. The world's most unconvincing "no". Maura's gaze had drifted somewhere to the left of me, and I could see her searching for something to say.

"Maura, think of the hives," I joked, trying to lighten the mood a little.

"I'm not upset... anymore. I'm just more worried than anything else." Maura finally looked me in the eye, and I could see the worry there, along with all the feelings she spent years hiding from me. With one look, I could tell that she felt what we'd been building for the last several weeks was starting to crumble. That was the last thing I ever wanted.

"Let's not worry, let's not be upset. Let's just remember to take things slowly and just have fun. Especially tonight. All I wanted to do was talk to you about the reservations I had about coming home to you. That's all. And you reassured me, Maura. Now I want to come home to you more than ever, because we both have an understanding of where we stand."

"Okay," Maura exhaled.

"Maura, I'm sorry I upset you." I reached out and pulled her to me in an awkward embrace. My seated position on the bed, Maura's standing position, and the crutches cuffed around my upper arms made for one very weird hug.

"I'm sorry I got upset. I'm glad you're at least telling me how you feel." Maura was definitely calmer, her cheerful, geeky facade slowly making its way back.

"Yeah well... that's the new Jane," I said with a smile.

"I like this new Jane." Maura grinned. "I don't want us to hide anything from each other anymore. We did too much of that in the past, and I don't like where it led us to."

"Me either," I admitted. "Hey did you bring dinner?" Something smelled great and we definitely needed to change the subject.

"Yes, as a matter of fact I did. Are you hungry already?" If Maura was surprised by the sudden change in subject, she hid it well.

"All this emotional stuff makes me hungry." I rubbed my belly for emphasis.

"Okay, I'll just bring this down to the lounge and microwave it. It's pasta primavera. Healthy and home cooked, just like you asked for."

"I'll set the table then," I said with a smile, gesturing to the rolling bed tray.

"Thanks. I'll be right back."

While Maura was gone I walked (yes, walked!) over to the bag that Maura had brought with her and took out the two plates and the silverware that she had packed. I also found a small vase and a single red rose. I put that on the table between us, and I suddenly felt very bad about telling Maura about my fears.

It seemed to take Maura a while down in the lounge. She came back with the tupperware container with our dinner in it and the red rim around her eyes told me what had taken so long. I'd scared Maura that afternoon, and even though I was following Dr. Gilfried's advice by talking to Maura, I needed to find a better way of going about doing it.

"Maura?" I held an arm out to her as she put the pasta container on the rolling tray table.

"Yes Jane?" Maura kept her back to me, but I could still hear the tears she'd shed in the lounge in her voice.

"I'm sorry I'm such an ass."

Maura spun around. "Why would you say that?"

"You packed this super romantic dinner for us and I just spent the first half hour you were here telling you how afraid I am of coming home to you. I'm sorry." I felt like I wanted to cry at that point.

Maura straightened up, no longer as upset as she appeared to be when she'd entered the room with dinner. "Your fears are justified, Jane. And I still think we can have a romantic dinner together if you wanted. Or if not, it'll just be dinner. It's okay either way."

"I don't know how romantic dinner in a rehab is, but I do want to have a romantic dinner with you tonight. You know, if you can ignore the lack of ambiance." I gestured around us, to the hospital-style bed with guardrails and the blank walls, without any decorations on them.

Maura laughed. "All I need is you for romance. So... I'll send Sara home?"

"Sure, as long as she gets paid for all this time she misses. I don't want to cut her pay." I realized after the words came out of my mouth that I wasn't the one paying Sara, Maura was, and I felt guilty for spending her money like that. "I mean-"

Maura cut me off good-naturedly. "Of course, Jane." She gave a little smirk when she understood why I suddenly got flustered. Maura rarely showed it, but money truly was no object to her, and she took no offense to me spending it. On the contrary, she seemed to encourage it, and that moment with Sara's pay was a prime example. She walked out of the room again and I put servings of pasta onto both of our plates.

When she came back, I had everything ready for us and was sitting on the side of my bed, giving Maura the guest chair.

"This looks delicious," I said.

"Dig in," Maura replied cheerfully.

"This is nice. Thank you for coming here to spend the evening with me." I wondered if Maura knew just how much I loved her visits, and how much I missed her when she had to go home.

"I'm glad I could come by. I miss you when I'm not here." It was like she had read my mind. "Do you want to watch a movie after dinner?" Maura suggested.

"I'd love to. You pick the movie this time," I grinned.

"No, you pick it," she said with a smile. "Anything I pick will put you right to sleep." Maura winked at me, and I decided it was the cutest thing I'd ever seen her do. I must have been staring at her, because she continued talking. "I really hope you'll be able to come home this weekend. We can do whatever you want."

I snapped out of my reverie. "I'm really going to try. I think I'd probably just like to stick around the house though, maybe do what we're doing now. Help with the cooking and just relax a little. It'll feel nice to sleep in a regular bed."

"Um…" Maura gave me a tight smile. "I had a hospital bed brought in for the guest room. I did it as part of the preparations for when you came home, sort of as a way to give you some place to sleep if sleeping in my bed became too uncomfortable. Physically, I mean. The hospital bed is adjustable, and my bed isn't. I'm sorry, Jane. I didn't anticipate what we talked about today, so I didn't take that into consideration when I had the hospital bed brought in. But you know what? You can use my bed this weekend and I'll sleep on the couch."

"No, Maura, it's all right." I reached across the tray table and squeezed her arm.

"It's just that, I guess I figured you'd sleep with me, and if you got uncomfortable or if your medical situation necessitated it, you could use the hospital bed in the guest room. I made an assumption, and I'm sorry. I can try to see if I can get the regular bed set back up before you come home this weekend…" Maura rambled, starting to get upset again.

"Maura, really, it's okay," I said, taking her hand. "Who knows? Maybe we'll fall asleep on the couch together, like old times," I teased her with a grin.

"That would be... perfect," Maura replied as she calmed down.

"No, you're perfect." I grinned. "Now eat your pasta, it's getting cold."

We finished up our dinner, and I helped Maura to clean up the plates. She took them into the bathroom to wash them in the sink before putting them back in the bag she brought with her. I pushed away the rolling tray and pulled down the sheets on the bed. I took out the tablet computer, put it on the bed, and found my pajamas. When Maura came out of the bathroom, I headed in to get changed.

"I left a pair of pajamas on the bed for you. You know, if you don't want to curl up next to me in that Christian Dior dress."

"It's actually a Christian Lacroix. But you were close!" she said with a grin. "I don't know if I can stay the night, Jane. It's not really... appropriate."

"We can ask them to bring up the cot," I said hopefully. I really wanted her to stay.

"It's okay, Jane. I have to work tomorrow anyway. I'll just stay to watch the movie and then I'll head home."

"Okay," I said neutrally. "I understand." I couldn't really blame her for wanting to leave after the movie. I'd just nearly broken her heart by telling her I wanted to take things slowly.

"I'll put these away for you while you get changed?" she asked.

"Sure," I shrugged.

I made my way into the bathroom with my pajamas and started with my nightly routine. I had just finished brushing my teeth and was putting my pajamas on when my pelvis developed a mind of its own. I had one foot in my pajama bottoms when I just fell over. There's no real explanation for it. Maybe I'd overdone it while walking around all afternoon. Maybe it was just time for my pelvis to remind me that it wasn't as strong as it should be. Maybe I was just stupid enough to think I could stand up and put my pajamas on instead of sitting down to do it.

Regardless, one moment I was standing nearly upright and the next I was sprawled out on the floor in my underwear.

"Jane?!"

Maura came bursting into the room.

"Oh my god, are you all right? Stay there," she said as she knelt down next to me, checking me over. "I'll go get a nurse."

"No Maura! No. Do _not _get the nurse. I am fine. Really, I'm fine. I fall like this in therapy all the time." I was panicky about falling, and panicky about alerting the medical staff because of what it would do to my prospects of going home that weekend, but I wasn't hurt.

"You could be hurt, you might have broken something." Maura's normally unruffled persona was starting to sound a little panicky too.

"No, it's okay," I said, trying to calm us both down. "Can you just help me get up?"

"I don't think that's the best thing to do, Jane. I should have the house doctor check you out."

"You're a doctor. Can't you see I'm all right?" I tried to distract Maura, to get her to forget about calling in the medical staff.

"I can't be sure, Jane. You need x-rays."

"X-rays? I fall like this all the time in therapy." I certainly didn't need x-rays for something like this. I just needed a hand up.

"On mats, soft surfaces, Jane. You could have bent some of your hardware or fractured an already weakened bone." Maura started going through the possibilities, and I realized if I didn't get up and off that floor right away, she was going to have me admitted at Mass Gen before the night was over.

I grunted and pulled myself up to a sitting position. "I'm fine, Maura. I'm going to put my pajamas on and lie down. I am not hurt."

"Please Jane, I would feel a lot better if you would let them check you out," she said uncertainly.

"If they hear that I fell, Maura, they're not going to let me come home this weekend. I promise you that I am not hurt, and I am going to go right to the bed from here, okay? Please Maura," I begged her quietly.

Maura looked torn. I grabbed my pajama bottoms and my crutches, and rolled over to finally stand back up. Maura snapped out of her thoughts and helped me up.

"See? Would I be able to stand up if I wasn't all right?"

Maura bit her lip. "Still Jane, it's better to be safe than sorry."

"Please Maur, all I want to do is come home for the weekend._ Please_."

Maura still didn't answer me, so I started making my way back into my room one cautious step at a time.

I made it all the way to the bed, where I sat down and put my crutches aside. I put one foot into my pajama bottoms, then the other. Maura came out of the bathroom just as I was standing up to pull up my pants.

"Here, let me-" I could tell by the hitch in her voice that she was crying.

"It's all right, Maura. I'm not hurt. You don't need to be this upset," I said as I finished pulling up my pants without her help. I sat back down on the bed. I patted the spot next to me. "Sit down, please."

Maura sat down next to me, and I hugged her tightly. When we separated, I took her hand.

"You need to understand that there are going to be moments like that, where I fall down. Whether it's figuratively or literally. I'm going to fall down. And the only time you have to worry about me is if I don't get right back up, okay?" I looked her in the eyes and wiped away her tears with my free hand.

"I would just feel better if you would let yourself be examined by the doctor on duty," Maura hiccupped.

"No. It's not necessary. But if it makes you feel better, you can examine me."

Maura raised an eyebrow.

I laughed, and she did too. "I didn't mean that in a sexual way. You're a doctor, Maura. Satisfy your curiosity. I'm not hurt."

She shook her head.

"You're going to need to trust me when I tell you that I'm okay."

"But you always say you're okay, even when you're not," she pointed out.

"It's true. But you know me well enough to tell when it isn't okay. Right now, it really is okay."

Maura nodded, and rubbed her eye. "Do you want me to help you into bed?"

"Only if you're going to sit next to me and watch a movie," I grinned.

"All right."

"You _sure_ you don't want a pair of pajamas?" I tried to tease her into staying with me that night.

"Maybe I will stay, Jane."

"Sure, you can keep an eye on me that way," I affirmed with mock seriousness.

"I, well, that's not, I wasn't going to…" Maura knew she'd been caught and got instantly awkward.

"I'm so thankful that in all of our time apart, you didn't learn how to lie," I said with a laugh. "I know why you want to stay. I don't mind the reason. I'm glad you'll stay here with me. Go get changed and I'll pick out a movie for us both." I gave her a peck on her blushing cheek before she stood up to walk away.

By the time Maura had come back out, the night nurse had come by with my evening meds and I had queued up A League of Their Own on Netflix. Maura pulled back the covers and sat next to me before covering herself.

"Should I call down for a cot?" she asked quietly.

"Nope. Not unless you want one," I responded sweetly.

"I just don't want to move too fast," Maura said. There was no sarcasm in her voice, and her words were not meant to sting, but our conversation from earlier flew back into my conscious thoughts and I felt terrible about telling her about my fears. It was moments like that one that had kept me from telling her my fears before. I never wanted either of us to feel like that.

"We used to sit on the couch together like this all the time. I'm okay with this if you are," I said quietly.

"I'm more than okay with it."

"Good," I breathed out.

Once the movie started Maura reached for my hand, and we sat there in comfortable silence for most of the movie. Occasionally Maura spouted out facts about the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, and I looked over to smile at her. She seemed a lot calmer than she was at the beginning of the night.

By the time the movie was over, Maura's eyelids were drooping. I was pretty exhausted too. We put the tablet computer back in the bedside table drawer and we lowered the head of the bed to a reclining position.

"Good night, Maura," I whispered. "Thanks for staying tonight."

When Maura didn't answer me, I thought she had fallen asleep. I looked over to her to see her looking me over.

"What's wrong?" I asked, facing her.

She cupped my cheek and leaned in to kiss me. This kiss was different from most of the other kisses we'd shared. This one was more forceful, a little more hurried.

When Maura finally pulled away, she continued to cup my cheek. "I'm never going to let you go, Jane. No matter who you think you are, or who you think you've become, I love you. I will prove to you that we belong together, and you have nothing to be afraid of when you come home. I promise."

"I believe you," I said, and kissed her once more. "I'm sorry if I scared you tonight, both with our talk and then with my fall."

"I'm not scared of losing you. Not anymore," Maura promised. "But years of us dancing around our feelings for each other left me unprepared for today. I'm glad we talked. I hope I allayed some of your fears."

"You did. And I love you for it."

"I love you too. Good night, Jane." Maura grasped my hand tightly and brought it to her lips.

"Good night, Maura." I leaned over and pecked her cheek before closing my eyes.

We stayed side by side through the night, with our fingers intertwined. My last thought as I drifted off to sleep was that I could not wait to go home, so we could have some privacy and I could spoon against Maura and hold her tightly. This side-by-side sleeping thing was for the birds.

When I woke up the next morning, I expected to feel Maura on the bed next to me, but she was already up and in the bathroom. I sat up and waited for her to come back out.

"You're up early," I said, my voice raspier than usual from sleep. It wasn't quite five yet.

"Yes, I need to get home and shower and get ready for work," Maura replied as she hurried about the room, picking up her things.

"Are we okay, Maura?" I was still worried about the night before.

"Absolutely, Jane." She leaned over and gave me a peck on the lips. "I have a busy couple of days ahead of me, so I'm going to head out now. I don't know if I'm going to be able to stop back between now and Friday, but I will come and pick you up Friday at lunch time if you earn your pass."

"Okay. I'll text you."

"Good." She smiled at me.

"You're beautiful," I blurted out.

Maura looked at me in disbelief. "My hair is a mess and my dress is wrinkled."

"And yet I've never seen you look more gorgeous than you do right now," I replied honestly, my eyes raking over her body.

"Flattery will get you _everywhere_, Jane." She leaned forward and kissed me hard, and despite myself, I moaned into her lips.

I grinned at her as she pulled away. "Have a good day at work. If you can, send me a text. I'll text you back after therapy."

"You got it," she promised.

Maura gathered up her things and went to leave, then walked back to the bed once more.

"Are you sure you're all right? You're really not hurt from your fall last night?" she asked me, concerned.

"I don't even ache, except for you, when you're not here."

"That's sweet. But really, no musculoskeletal complaints?" Dubious Maura was cute.

"Not one."

"Okay." She finally looked convinced. Maura hugged me to her again, then walked toward the door. She stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder at me, giving me a small wave. I waved back. Maura turning around to wave at me was becoming a habit between us, and as much as I disliked it when she had to leave, that small gesture always left me with my heart fluttering.

* * *

**A/N:** thank you to those of you who have placed votes in the Rizzles Fan Awards! If you haven't voted for your favorite authors, stories or fan art, you still have time. Visit rizzlesfanawards**.**wordpress**.**com and vote today! Make sure you check out the rules, to make the contest easier for the contest runner to take care of. :)


	27. Chapter 27

**A/N: **Thank you, CharlietheCAG for the beta on this chapter, and all the others.

* * *

After Maura left, I realized I still had almost an hour before breakfast. I pulled out the tablet computer and surfed to my bank's website. I pulled up my bank account information for the first time since my accident. My settlement from the NYPD still hadn't come through, but my disability payments had been accruing there the entire time, and even though the payments were small in comparison to my normal pay, there was more money in my account than I anticipated.

I wasn't sitting on a goldmine, but I was sitting on enough money to make two purchases that I needed to make. My first order of business was to go to a floral website and pick out a bouquet of flowers to have sent to Maura at work as a nice surprise for her to find when she got in. I picked out an arrangement that was pretty but not too romantic, and a reasonable price.

Next I went over to a police supply website and picked out a leather badge holder for Frankie. I had always promised him I would buy him that when he got his gold badge. I hoped he didn't already have one. I had the badge holder shipped in my name to Maura's address. I had them ship it express, so it would be there by the time we had our little gathering on Sunday. The express shipping fees were ridiculously expensive, but since I didn't have the option of going into a store to buy it, it was my only choice.

Once my shopping was done, I put the tablet away and picked up my crutches to go get dressed. I wanted to be ready and waiting for the morning nurse. I did not fall over when getting changed that morning, though I was far more careful than I was the night before.

When the nurse came to meet me after breakfast, we walked down to the elevator and the aquatic therapy center on the first floor. I did my therapy with a renewed vigor that morning, and every morning up until Thursday. I didn't ask for or use the wheelchair once all week.

Thursday afternoon came around a lot faster than I thought I would. The weekend pass that Doctors Gilfried and Grossberg had talked about stayed at the forefront of my thoughts since they told me about it. I had worked really hard in therapy, and I know Derrick was impressed by my use of the crutches. I did every exercise with Maura's house in mind. I followed every instruction with the thought of spooning against Maura all weekend long at the forefront. I spoke to Dr. Gilfried in our sessions about my hopes for the weekend and the progress I was making that week.

So by the time Thursday afternoon rolled around, I was totally, completely exhausted, but I had still managed to keep myself from 'overdoing it' like Dr. Grossberg had said. My final hurdle was to get through therapy with Dr. Gilfried that afternoon. I knew Dr. Grossberg would also stop by to do a physical assessment. I was very nervous when I walked into Dr. Gilfried's office.

"Hi Jane," she smiled at me.

"Hi Doc," I said.

"What's wrong?" Dr. Gilfried gave me a concerned look, obviously able to tell I was very anxious about something.

"Honestly?" I asked.

"That's the only thing you're allowed to use around here, Jane. Honesty." Dr. Gilfrie's response was cheerful and not condescending.

"I'm nervous about this session today. I worked really hard this week, and all I can think about is going home for the weekend. If I didn't earn this pass, I'm going to be heartbroken."

"Well, tell me about your week," Dr. Gilfried suggested calmly.

"Maura came by on Tuesday night and we had dinner and watched a movie. I talked to her about what you told me to talk to her about, and she was very understanding. She said she really wants for me to come home to her, but that I could decide where I sleep- whether it's with her or in my own room- and that if I felt like our living arrangements were not working out, she would gladly help me to make other arrangements. But she also emphasized that she understands we've been apart for a long time, and that we both will have things we have to get used to."

"And how did that make you feel?"

"Mostly relieved. I'm relieved that she agrees with me, and that she wants to take things slowly. I also feel a little bad though, because even though I didn't mean to, I think I scared her a little, and made her feel bad when I told her I thought we were moving a little quickly. To her credit though, in the end she took it in stride, and was more than willing to accommodate me to make me feel better. Maura's always been wonderful like that," I said proudly.

"So you're okay with the idea of going home to her when it's time for you to be released to outpatient therapy?"

"Absolutely. I trust Maura, and I know she has my best interests at heart. If she says she's going to do something, she follows through with it." There was no doubt in my mind that Maura was going to go above and beyond to make me feel at home.

"And what about you? What accommodations are you going to make for Maura?"

"How do you mean?" I really had no idea what the doctor was asking.

"Well, it's not all about you, Jane," Dr. Gilfried said with a smile.

"Well, I'd do anything for her that I could. She hasn't really approached me with any fears, so I don't know what kind of accommodations she would want me to make. But if she did approach me, I'd listen to her and reassure her that I'd do anything I could for her."

"Don't you think you should ask her if she has any fears?"

"Uh, I guess so. I didn't really think of that. I've never been really good at talking about feelings. Now I feel like I'm being selfish," I admitted.

"Well, that will be your assignment for this weekend, to talk to her about how she's feeling about all of this."

"Wait, does that mean… Am I going home this weekend?" I asked, excitedly.

"You have my approval, you just need to earn Dr. Grossberg's when she gets here," Dr. Gilfried cautioned.

And as if that was her cue, Dr. Grossberg knocked on the door and let herself into the office.

"Hello Jane. Dr. Gilfried." Dr. Grossberg was all business, and it made me even more nervous.

"Hi Doc," I said. Dr. Gilfried nodded her greeting.

"So Jane, how are you doing?"

"I'd say I'm doing well. I haven't used the wheelchair since Tuesday when I left this office. I had a really great aqua therapy session this morning, too. Every day I use the crutches, I feel stronger. I still rely on them a great deal for support, but I already feel stronger than I did at the beginning of the week."

"That's good." Dr. Grossberg said. "Let me see you walk."

I stood up without the crutches and then put my arms into the cuffs. I walked the length of Dr. Gilfried's office and back.

"Once more, please," Dr. Grossberg requested.

I walked the length of the office and back once more and, at Dr. Grossberg's nod, sat back down on the couch.

"Very good, Jane. Though I'm going to ask Derrick to address that limp with you. Do you have pain when you use your right leg?"

"No, but I do notice that my gait doesn't feel right."

"It's normal, after injuries like yours, to have a lurch or a limp. We'll work out as much of that as we can in therapy."

"Will it have an effect on my weekend pass?" I asked.

"Not at all. You can go home this weekend, provided the place you're going is ready for you?"

"Yes, Maura's been preparing all week. She got a list of supplies from the day nurse and she's even had my prescriptions filled for me. She's really excited that I'm coming home."

"Terrific. This Maura is a doctor, right?"

"Yes. Well, a pathologist, though she's worked so many emergencies- including some of my own- that if she wasn't the world's best medical examiner, I'd say she missed her calling in emergency medicine."

"That's reassuring," Dr. Grossberg said. "You can go home tomorrow after therapy. Be back by 10pm on Sunday, Jane. And be careful. It's going to be very tempting to overdo it while you're home. Don't give yourself a setback."

"I won't. Thank you, Doctor. Both of you, thank you. I can't wait to go home!" I was so happy I thought I could float up, off the couch.

"Don't forget you still have to do therapy in the morning. Let's have a follow up in my office on Monday after your physical therapy. Is that all right, Dr. Gilfried?"

"It's fine with me. We'll resume our regular schedule on Tuesday, Jane."

"Okay. I won't forget about therapy in the morning. Maura is going to come and pick me up at noon, once I call her to give her the okay."

Dr. Grossberg got up and gave me a smile. "Have a good weekend, Jane."

"Thanks, Doctor." I couldn't hide my elation.

I looked over to Dr. Gilfried. We weren't even a half hour into our session, so I knew I wasn't escaping anytime soon.

"You really want to call Maura, don't you?"

"Yes." I was barely able to suppress my grin. I was going home for the weekend!

"All right. We'll make this short. Is there anything you want to talk about before you go home?"

"Not really," I said truthfully. "I'm thrilled."

"Nothing making you anxious or worried at all?"

"Should there be? I mean, I've just been picturing it like it was before Maura met William. Just a weekend on the couch, watching movies. My family coming over on Sunday for dinner. Is there something I should be nervous or anxious about?"

"Well, not that I want to upset you, but what if things are not exactly like they were before William showed up? A significant amount of time has passed and Maura's had her fair share of problems too. It's possible that either she or the environment in her home may somehow be different than you remember it."

"Then I'll spend my time there getting to know her, and the environment again," I argued.

"All right, then," Dr. Gilfried said, satisfied.

I fidgeted.

Dr. Gilfried smirked at me. I shifted in my seat and looked at the clock. Still twenty-five more minutes to the session. I looked back at Dr. Gilfried and fought myself not to grimace.

"Oh just go, Jane! Go call Maura. And have a great weekend." Dr. Gilfried laughed.

"Thank you!" I bellowed as I jumped up and nearly fell over.

"Be careful, Jane! You can't go home if you get hurt!" Dr. Gilfried's face registered panic on my behalf.

"I'm fine!" I grinned, grabbing the crutches. "I promise to be careful!" I called over my shoulder as I hustled back to my room as fast as my wobbly legs would carry me.

"Jane?!" Sara stood up, surprised I was back in my room so soon. "Are you all right?"

"I'm going hoooooooommmee!" I yelled, excitedly.

Sara jumped up, clapping her hands together. "That's terrific, Jane!"

"Well, just for the weekend. I got my pass. I gotta call Maura," I said, reaching into the drawer in the bedside table for my phone.

"I'm so happy for you! You're going to have such a great weekend," Sara said as she stepped out of the room to give me some privacy while I made my call. Before I dialed though, I quickly read through the messages Maura had sent while I was in therapy.

_My fingers are crossed. Have a good day in therapy and please let me know about the weekend pass as soon as you __can._

_Your mother wants to have everyone over on Sunday. Would this be okay?_

_The wait is killing me. I know you're in therapy, I just wish they'd tell you._

_If you can't come home, (but I am hoping you can) I will come and spend the weekend with you._

_By __the way, did you have a package shipped here?_

_Any news yet?_

_Disregard my last message. Just realized you're still in therapy. I'm not usually this impatient, I'm just excited at the opportunity to have you home for the weekend._

I grinned. Maura was just as excited as I was. I imagined her pacing back and forth in the morgue, her phone on a metal tray next to her autopsy implements, trying not to reach, once more for the phone to check for messages. I finally hit send on her number, and she picked up before the phone even finished its first ring.

"Jane?" She breathed into the phone.

"Hi Maur," I schooled my voice, keeping it neutral. I was so excited about going home, but I didn't want to freak out over the phone.

"Oh no, it's bad news, isn't it? Well, it's okay. We'll still see each other this weekend. I'll come by tomorrow night and-"

"Maura!"

"-we can have a sleepover and I'll bring Jo with me."

"Maura!"

"We can watch movies and I'll bring us dinner from wherever you want," Maura continued, trying to do her best to assuage the disappointment she thought I was feeling.

"MAUR-RAH!" I bellowed into the phone.

"Oh Jane, don't be so disappointed, I know this is upsetting but maybe they'll let you try again for next weekend?"

"Maura, have a little faith in me, would you? And be here tomorrow at noon to come and pick me up," I laughed as I said it.

My announcement stopped Maura's consolations in their tracks. "You're coming home?!"

"Yes I am. Just for the weekend though," I cautioned.

"But you're coming home! Oh Jane! This is wonderful! You're coming home!" I could feel Maura's elation through the phone. It matched my own.

"I can't wait to see you. And since when have you started making assumptions?"

"The tone of your voice made me think that. I drew a hypothesis based on your- OH WHATEVER, JANE. I'll be ready and waiting for you at noon tomorrow. I'm so happy!"

"I'm happy too," I effused.

"What would you like for dinner tomorrow night? I should pick that up on my way home tonight so I have it here." It didn't take long for Maura to get right down to business. Already she was making an effort to make my short stay at home the best it possibly could be. My heart melted at the thought.

"I thought maybe we could have pizza for dinner tomorrow? Since it's going to be a big day, we won't have time to cook." I just wanted to spend every moment with Maura. I didn't want her to be put out, or spend too much time in the kitchen, where I would surely be in the way. Not when I first got home.

"That's great. And Saturday, if you feel like it, we can cook together. Sunday your mother wants to have everyone over before you go back. She wants to have a little party. For Frankie," she added to clarify.

"That's all wonderful. I just have to be back here by ten on Sunday night."

"I will get you there at precisely ten. Not a minute later, but not a minute sooner because they're not keeping me from you for any longer than necessary," Maura proclaimed.

"You're so romantic," I said it sarcastically, but I really did mean it.

"Hush. You know you're going to be begging me to let you stay home," Maura flirted.

"I know I will be too," I said honestly. "But I prefer not to use the term begging. Requesting is more like it."

"You mean demanding," Maura deadpanned.

"I can't wait to see you and all of your new sarcasm in your natural environment."

"I'm telling you, so many months alone with your mother here and she starts to rub off." I could hear Maura's breathy laughter. "Oh, by the way, thank you for the beautiful flowers. Your mother now thinks I have a secret admirer." I imagined Maura trying to get out of that conversation with my mother without lying. It must not have been easy.

"Oh, she saw them?" I was surprised. Did my mother go down to the morgue to visit Maura, now that she didn't work in the cafe anymore?

"Well, I brought them home with me without thinking. She saw the card, and of course she had to read it." I could sense a tinge of irritation in Maura's voice. Maura was as much a part of my family as Frankie or Tommy was, but she still liked her boundaries, and Ma made it a habit of crossing them every single day.

"I'm glad I didn't sign the card 'Love, Jane' like I had originally planned, then."

"She thought what you wrote was quite sweet though. She can't wait to meet my 'gentleman caller'." I could hear the laughter in Maura's voice. She had no fear about telling my mother about us, it seemed.

"Won't she be surprised," I deadpanned. "I should probably tell her this weekend. I really don't want to hide anything from her." That was the truth. I was just wary of her reaction. My mother's Catholic upbringing aside, her reactions a few weeks prior when I told her about Maura and I speaking again had left me wondering what she was going to do and say when I finally admitted my feelings about Maura to her.

"If that's what you want to do, we can do that," Maura said, interrupting my thoughts. "I think letting your mother and brothers know first is best, then perhaps Frost and Korsak?"

"Yeah. Maybe we can tell Ma on Sunday morning while she cooks, and then the boys at the party?"

"Sure, if you want." Maura was definitely going to leave this all up to me. I was just glad she was there for support.

"I guess we'll see how it goes. It's hard to plan for these things. It would be nice to say 'this is when we'll tell them' but somehow plans always change. I want to tell everyone when we feel the time is right, and not by some deadline we set for ourselves," I explained.

"We'll do it when we're both ready, Jane. There's no rush. Though I do agree that doing it sooner, rather than later, is probably the best idea."

"You're right, as always," I said, the smile evident in my voice.

"I'll see you tomorrow. You don't have to pack anything, I have clothes and toiletries and your medications here," Maura said, changing the subject.

"You're wonderful, you know that?" God, how I loved her.

"I do know that, but I don't mind hearing you say it." The flirtatious tone was back in Maura's voice and I loved that, too.

"You're so humble too!" I laughed, and I could hear Susie Chang start speaking to Maura in the background.

"I love you Jane. I have to go, but I will be there to get you tomorrow. I can't wait!"

"I can't wait too. And I love you, too. Thank you," I said earnestly.

"Bye for now." I could almost hear the wink at the end of Maura's sentence.

"Bye Maur."

I hung up the phone and actually sighed like a teenage girl that just got off the phone with her crush.

I spent the rest of the evening fidgeting, unable to sit still but unable to get up and do very much. Sara did her best to keep me occupied, even offering to stay until I fell asleep again, but I told her to go home at the end of her shift. As much as I appreciated her kind offer, I didn't need an audience to watch me fidget. Sara told me she'd see me on Monday afternoon. I didn't even want to think that far in advance though. For me, the only thing that existed was the following afternoon, when Maura was coming to get me.

Eventually I fell asleep, but I woke up often, wondering if it was time to get up for my last physical therapy session before heading home.

For the first time since I was a child, I felt the same excitement I did when waiting for Christmas morning. And when it was finally time to get up, I was just as exhausted as I usually was on all those Christmas mornings of my childhood. I didn't let it stop me when I got up for therapy though.

Physical therapy that morning was rough. I don't know if it was because Derrick was trying to cram in as much therapy as possible before the weekend, since I'd be missing my weekend sessions, or if I was just exhausted from sleeping poorly. Either way, I wasn't really up to par and Derrick noticed it.

"You're going home like this?" he asked, frustrated when I'd let my pelvis get out from under me for what felt like the twentieth time that morning, but was probably only the fourth or fifth time.

"I'm sorry. I guess my mind is already on the weekend pass," I admitted sheepishly.

"Well, bring your mind back here," he said gruffly. "You can't even do the parallel bars this morning. How am I supposed to send you home?"

"C'mon Derrick, if you make me nervous and threaten me with not going home I'm just going to screw up more," I whined.

"Then concentrate," he demanded.

"I am, I am trying."

He grunted and we continued working. A few minutes later I had made my way from one end of the bars to the opposite end when I felt the air behind me change. It was so subtle, but I knew that the physical therapy assistant that had been following me back and forth across the bars wasn't there anymore. I turned around to look, and Maura had taken her place.

"Oh my god, you can't be here," I stammered.

"Why not?" she asked. "I'm a medical doctor. I'm just as qualified to walk behind you as the assistant was."

"No, no, no! I am having an awful day today and you can't be here to see this. It's embarrassing!"

Derrick grunted, as if he was agreeing with me, and I started making my way back across the bars, even more self-conscious than I had been.

"You seem to be doing fine to me. I've been watching you for almost an hour. You look tired though. Did you not sleep well?" Maura asked, concerned.

I realized we'd made it to the opposite end of the bars again and I hadn't fallen. I couldn't fall now, not with Maura right there to see me make a fool of myself.

"You've been here for an hour?" I was mortified. She'd seen me fall. Repeatedly. She probably heard Derrick yell at me too.

"Yes," Maura said simply, placing her hands on my hips and guiding my gait a bit.

"_Maura_," I breathed.

"What, Jane?"

She was completely oblivious.

"I can't concentrate when you do_ that_."

Derrick laughed. For the first time since I had met the man several weeks ago, he let out a belly laugh so loud that it echoed through the entire physical therapy hall. People stopped and stared.

"What's so funny?" I demanded.

"She should do that more often. She should come here every day and do that for you, because look at yourself. You're not lurching at all!"

I paused to look down at myself as I walked, and promptly let my pelvis swivel outward, causing me to start to fall.

"Easy, I've got you," Maura said, hugging me to her as she lowered me to the ground gently.

"You're a mess today, Detective. But I haven't laughed that hard in years. Get up. We still have fifteen minutes, and I'm not letting you leave here until you make it back and forth twice without falling."

I groaned and I heard Maura's laugh behind me as I got up. I turned around, ready to walk back to the other end of the bars, and Derrick let Maura lead me this time, with him behind me. She placed her hands on my hips, applying gentle pressure as she walked backwards. "See how keeping your hip in check allows you to walk with a normal gait?" she asked.

I nodded. I'd heard her, but all I could think of was Maura's hands on my body.

"Take your hands off the bars, Detective," Derrick said from behind me. I did as he instructed, and held my arms out in front of me.

"Put them on my shoulders," Maura instructed.

"Yeah, 'cause that won't be distracting at all." I mumbled, but did as I was told as Maura grinned at me.

We made it all the way across, and I paused at the end of the bars to wait for Derrick and Maura to change places. We maintained our positions for the way back, and before I knew it, I had one of the two repetitions done. At the end of that trip, Derrick and Maura switched places once more, and we made it across for the third time.

"One more," Derrick said.

Derrick and Maura switched places once last time, and I made it across once more. At the end, Derrick clapped me on the back.

"Way to go, Detective. You did it, and you did it you come back on Monday we're going to do more gait training like this. It's clearly beneficial to you. Now, go have a nice weekend, and don't you dare hurt yourself while you're home."

"Yes, sir!" I said, turning around to face him and grinning. He grinned back at me before leaving Maura and I on our own.

I turned back to Maura and grinned at her. She pulled me in and kissed me quickly. "You're really doing well," she said, as she pulled away, handing me my crutches. "You're making excellent progress. And the gait training is going to get rid of that limp before you know it."

"I was doing really badly today, actually. I think I was nervous about going home," I admitted, embarrassed.

"Well, I'm glad I could help," Maura said sweetly. "Now let's go grab your phone and anything else you need and let's get out of here."

When we got back to my room, there was a brand new winter coat and a pair of winter boots waiting on the bed for me.

"Maura!"

"What?" she asked innocently.

"I have a winter coat and boots." She was spending way too much money on me. This had to stop.

"Actually, you were wearing both when you were on the train. They had to be disposed of," Maura said gently.

"I have other coats and boots though!" I'd lived in Boston all of my life, minus the six months I'd spent in New York. Did she really think I had just one winter coat?

"They're in storage," Maura explained. "It was just easier to pick something up for you than to bother Walter to give me authorization to get into your storage facility and then ride all the way over there to dig through boxes to find it."

I held the coat up. It was stunning, something only Maura could pick out. And afford. "Maura, you've already done so much. Please, please from now on if there's something I need, pay for it out of my account. Please. I'll make sure Walter Laffler has whatever paperwork he needs to make that possible for you to do." I took my arms out of the cuffs on my crutches and started putting the coat on, but Maura took it from me.

She wrapped the coat around me and I threaded my arms through the sleeves. Maura stepped back to take a good look. "This fits you nicely. The hip length of the coat really flatters you. You look great, Jane. Hopefully the boots will be comfortable."

"Maura, you're just ignoring what I asked of you," I said quietly.

"Well, you know I can't lie, and you know I can't help but get you what I think you'll need, so I can't promise you anything."

I sighed. "Thank you, Maura. But you've done so much for me already. Way more than what I deserve."

She bent down to help tie the laces on the boots. "I wouldn't do it if I didn't think you deserved it, Jane. It's just one of the ways I have of showing you how much you mean to me."

"What are some of the other ways?" I asked.

Maura stood up, putting her own coat on.

"Come home, and I'll show you," she said, holding her hand out to me. I squeezed her hand before grabbing hold of my crutch again.

We went down the elevator together and walked slowly out of the rehab, the entire weekend and all of its possibilities ahead of us.

* * *

There are just two days left to get your votes in for the Rizzles Fan Awards. According to the person running the contest, some of the categories are really close in votes. That means your votes count. You can vote up to three times. Please visit rizzlesfanawards**.**wordpress**.**com and place your vote today. And if you voted, or if you voted for me, then heartfelt thanks to you! If you haven't voted, now is the time to do it! :)


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N**: Before I get into the next chapter, I need to personally thank each and every one of you that read this story, and who went and voted for me in the Rizzles Fan Awards. The winners were announced earlier today, and this story won for best plot, and was runner up for best angst/drama. I was also the winner for best author. I cannot thank you all enough for how much faith you've put in me and these stories. You make me incredibly happy. The fact that you're here and reading this is enough to make my heart soar. The fact that you liked it (and me! The Socially Awkward Penguin!) enough to vote for me, has made me feel like I've "taken a substance". I may write stories, but I haven't got the words to describe just how happy, and just how amazed I am, all thanks to you.

**THANK YOU**

From the very bottom of my heart, thank you so much. Lots of other stories and authors also won in various categories, and you should visit rizzlesfanawards**.**wordpress**.**com to see the winners. I can't thank you all enough, but I can keep trying. Thank you. Let's also not forget that this story would not be an award winner without the talent and patience of my ninja-beta, CharlietheCAG. Thank you, Charlie.

And now, onto the chapter. Jane's going home for the weekend! :)

* * *

Maura's Mercedes was parked right out front. We only had to walk about thirty feet to her car, but by the time I got in and closed the door, I was shivering.

"It's so cold!" I whimpered.

"It's no colder than normal. You're just much thinner than you normally are and you haven't been outside for any length of time in several months." She turned the heat up as high as it would go as I settled into the seat.

"You brought the Benz to pick me up?" I asked as I looked around me, unused to being in Maura's very high-end car.

"Your mother uses the Prius most of the time now. She had to give back the Cano Espresso car when she stopped working in the cafe," Maura said matter-of-factly.

"I didn't realize... jeez, Maura, you've essentially been supporting both of us, haven't you? Ma and I? This entire time?" I was shocked. Shocked and embarrassed and very upset at the thought.

Maura squeezed my arm. "I've been helping her where I can," she said gently. "She's getting unemployment and now that you're back in Boston she's been looking for a new job. I'm not sure she wants anyone to know it yet, but Stanley is looking to retire, and she's looking to get a small business loan to buy out the District One Café."

"Wow! Ma would really go far with that cafe." That would be perfect for my mother.

"I know. I told her I would co-sign on the loan for her if she needed it."

"_Maura_," I admonished.

"What?" she asked innocently.

"You can't keep doing that!"

"It's my money, Jane. And I happen to think that it would be a very good investment." Maura sounded almost angry that I'd tell her how to spend her money. I tried to reign my pride in a bit.

"Depending on when my settlement comes in from the NYPD, maybe I could lend that to Ma and she wouldn't need to apply for a loan."

"That's sweet of you, Jane. But that's your nest egg. You need that to get back up on your feet." I saw Maura cringe slightly at the phrase, but I ignored it.

"Well, maybe I should invest in something. Just in case I can't requalify for duty," I suggested.

"That's not a decision you need to make right now. You're doing well with your therapy, Jane. Now is not the time to worry about that." Once again I was being put off about my future by the people who loved me. Didn't they get it? Chances were, I wasn't going to be able to go back to work. Why didn't they see me making alternate plans as being prudent instead of me simply being unsure of myself?

"Maura, I can barely make it across the parallel bars and back without assistance. I have a horrible limp. Running seems to be out of the question. I am at a disadvantage when it comes to qualifying for the physical to get back into the BPD. I don't think it's a bad idea to explore a safety net for myself."

Maura looked over at me quickly as she drove.

"You worry me, sometimes," she murmured.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that it sounds to me like you've already given up before you've even tried. You already assume you won't qualify for duty. Pre-accident Jane wouldn't let anything stand in her way of requalifying."

"Maura, we talked about this. I'm not the same person I was before this accident," I warned her.

"Well, if there's anything at all that you fight to get back, get back that part of yourself. Jane Rizzoli doesn't take no for an answer."

"Maura, I'm just trying to be realistic. I don't want to set myself up for crushing disappointment." I was suddenly on the verge of tears, though I wasn't sure of exactly why. I couldn't tell if it was because it was very possible that I wouldn't work as a detective again, or because Maura seemed to believe in me so much. Too much, it felt like.

Maura glanced at me again, then took my left hand in her right hand. "I have faith in you, Jane. You should have faith in you too. You are Boston's best homicide detective. Nothing, and I mean _nothing_, can stop you if you put your mind to it."

I wasn't convinced, but I squeezed her hand. "I can't wait to get home."

"You're changing the subject, but that's fine. This is supposed to be a happy, fun weekend. I also love that you're referring to my house as home. I can't wait until we make it our house."

I smiled at her and squeezed her hand again. "You really are amazing, Maura."

We rode the rest of the way to Beacon Hill in silence. I kept my eyes trained out the window, soaking up sights I hadn't seen in almost a year. Part of me was thrilled to be going back there, and part of me was terrified. I desperately hoped that it would still feel like the comfy, safe, happy place it had been before William's arrival.

We pulled up in Maura's driveway a few minutes later and the front door instantly flew open.

"Did I mention your mother is quite excited about your arrival?" Maura asked with a laugh.

Ma bounded down the front steps, flinging my car door open before Maura could even get out and come around to get me.

"Welcome home, Janie!" Ma bellowed, bouncing up and down.

"Hi Ma," I said as I set the crutches outside of the car and started to ease my way out. By that point Maura had come around the car and gave me hand up. Ma gasped at the sight of the crutches, and I grinned at her.

We walked to the front steps and suddenly I was confronted with an obstacle I hadn't encountered yet during my rehabilitation: stairs. And these would not be the only ones. Maura's bedroom was on the second floor.

I hesitated when I got to the first step, and Maura wrapped an arm around me. "Angela, would you please get the door? I'll help Jane up the stairs."

Maura turned and looked at me. "You okay?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah, I think so. I didn't even think of the stairs."

"I'm here, I'll help you," Maura said kindly.

"I hate that I need help."

"You won't for long." She smiled at me encouragingly. "Step up with your left foot, as your right hip is likely weaker than your left. Use the crutches for support if you need them."

I did as Maura instructed and made it up the first step easily. I did the same for the next two steps and suddenly I was back in Maura's house. It really felt as if I had never left it.

Ma had walked in a few steps ahead of us and had her back to us, so while Maura still had her arm wrapped around my back, I gave her a quick peck on her cheek. She blushed furiously, and I grinned.

"Welcome home, Jane," she whispered into my ear.

Along one side of the kitchen island, there was a hand-painted banner that read "Welcome Home Jane".

"You did that for me?" I pointed to the banner and Ma grinned happily.

"Yes I did," Ma said proudly. "Do you like it?"

"It's adorable! I love it! Thank you."

Maura helped me over to the couch and I sat down, looking around. The interior of Maura's house hadn't really changed. The throw pillows and the throw blanket on the back of the couch were different, but the couch was the same and just as comfy as it ever was.

"Did you get a new stove?" I asked, looking over into the kitchen.

"A few months ago. The last one broke and it wasn't worth repairing," Maura said with a shrug.

"It's nice. It matches your kitchen nicely."

"It cooks well too," Ma added.

"We'll give that a try tomorrow, won't we?" I asked Maura.

"Yes, if you'd like. I thought we could make dinner together tomorrow."

"And Sunday I'm having everyone over to celebrate Frankie becoming a detective," Ma said brightly.

"That's great Ma, that's going to be a lot of fun. I just have to be back at the rehab by ten o'clock."

"I know. We'll make sure we get you back in time," Ma assured me.

"I'm probably not going to want to go," I admitted.

"Well you need to. You need to get better and get your gold badge back too!" Ma admonished.

"Yes, Ma," I said, scowling.

"Jane, I thought we'd make soup and sandwiches for lunch. I put a change of clothes upstairs for you and the tub in my bathroom is set up for you if you'd like to take a bath. I know you usually take one after physical therapy, right?"

"Yes, sure. That would be great."

"Angela, I'm going to help Jane upstairs and then I'll come back down to help with lunch."

"Okay, Maura." It had been a long time since I'd seen Ma that happy. She was one big smile, and my heart rested a little easier, seeing her at home, calm and relaxed. The last several months hadn't been easy on her either, I realized.

Maura and I slowly made our way upstairs.

"I could bathe in the guest bathroom," I said cautiously.

"The tub is bigger in my bathroom and I thought it would be easier for you to get in and out of it. Also, the tub in my bathroom has jets in it, which are good for your muscles. But if you prefer the guest bath, that's fine with me," Maura said neutrally.

"If you've got your bathroom all set up, I'll use that one. Thanks."

Maura walked with me into the bathroom. "All the toiletries you need are either next to the tub or here on the counter. I got you a new toothbrush-" she pointed to the one in the package on the counter, "and I thought you might enjoy a little bubble bath, so I picked up a one I thought you might like. It's lavender scented."

"That was really sweet of you, Maura. Thanks."

"Wait here, I'll bring your clothes in for you."

Maura came back a few minutes later with a change of clothes. "For Sunday, I took the liberty of picking you up a pair of jeans. I thought you might enjoy that more while the company is here. But for now I have a pair of BPD sweats and a BPD t-shirt I thought you might like."

"Thanks," I said again.

"Do you want me to help you into the tub? Or can you do that on your own? I don't want to be pushy, but I don't want you to hurt yourself either," Maura said with a sheepish grin.

"Why don't you wait outside, and if I need help getting in, I'll call you?"

"Okay," Maura said, and started walking toward the door.

"Maura?" I asked quickly, before she got too far.

"Yes?"

"I love you," I said with a smile. "It's good to be here."

Instantly she was back next to me, running a hand over my cheek. I leaned into her touch and kissed her sweetly.

"I love you too, Jane."

"I can't wait to have some private time with you," I said quietly, between kisses. "I don't know if I can, _you know_, yet. But I can't wait to hold you. And kiss you like this again and again."

"I think you're healed enough for coitus, Jane. And since they saved your ovaries, your sex drive should still be pretty healthy. Your body is still producing hormones," Maura said matter-of-factly.

"Ew, coitus? Sex drive? Really?" I grimaced.

Maura continued, unperturbed by my interruption. "That being said, I don't think this is the weekend for that. Not if we're taking it slowly."

"I agree. But I still want to hold you, and kiss you."

"I plan to do that too."

"Good," I said, kissing her lightly once more. "Now let me bathe. I smell like rehab."

Maura laughed. "Call me if you need anything, and take your time. Lunch won't be ready for a little while yet, and I know you're aching from all that hard work you did today."

"Thanks."

Maura walked out and I started filling the tub and undressing. I was able to get in without a problem. "Maur?" I yelled out.

"Yes, Jane?" I could hear Maura's desire to come back into the bathroom and join me, hidden in her otherwise cheerful response.

"I'm in."

"Okay. I'll come up later to see if you need help getting out. Be careful!"

"I will," I promised.

I rested my head against the back of the tub and flicked on the jets, watching the bath bubbles foam up around me. It felt_ reall_y good to be home.

After a little while I started washing up, using Maura's shampoo to wash the inch and a half of hair on top of my head. I missed my curls, but I was thankful that most of my scars on my scalp were now covered. All I had to do was wait for my hair to grow now. It was going to take awhile for it to gather any length, but I was glad the scars were covered up at this point.

Maura had left a brand new razor and shaving cream next to the tub, so I carefully shaved my legs. It was hard to take care of my bikini area sitting in the tub, but I managed to clean that up a bit too.

I washed up and then soaked for a bit longer. The water was starting to cool, so I turned off the jets and pulled the plug. I stepped out of the tub onto the small rug and was just pulling the towel around myself when the bathroom door swung open.

"Wait, I'll help-" Maura stopped short, staring at me. "You were supposed to call me when you needed to get out!" she admonished.

Horrified, I wrapped the towel around myself. "I got out just fine. Please Maura, I look horrible. Stop looking at me."

Maura realized I was embarrassed and her expression softened, but she didn't look away from me. Instead, she closed the door to the bathroom and locked it. She walked toward me softly, and lifted my chin up so I was looking her in the eyes.

"We talked about this, Jane. I think you're beautiful. You've got nothing to hide."

She kissed me softly, and while she had me distracted, she loosened the towel and let it fall around my ankles. I gasped as it happened, but she grasped my wrists and kept me from pulling the towel back up. Slowly, reverently, she let go of one of my wrists and dragged her hand down my torso and legs, over each of my scars.

"These," she said quietly, "are what make you who you are. They are a part of you," she said as she ran her fingers over each scar, old and new. "I love you, Jane. That means I love all of you. You are _beautiful_." She bent over to run her fingers over the scars on my shins, and picked up the towel as she stood back up.

She tried to hand the towel to me, but I didn't take it. Instead, I wrapped my arms around her waist when she stood upright again, and I kissed her. We stood there for a long moment, the kiss gradually deepening. Maura wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me tighter to her, running her tongue along my bottom lip. I parted my lips and granted her access, the sound of our lips coming together softly and the tiny, quiet sighs we let out providing the only noise in the bathroom.

After a moment, Maura pulled away slightly, leaning her forehead against mine. "Your mother is going to wonder what's going on," she whispered, before I pulled her back against me for one more kiss.

"Let her wonder. You're amazing," I whispered against her lips.

"So are you. And don't forget it. Now, please sit down and get dressed-" she took my crutches and guided me toward the bedroom. "-and I'll be waiting at the top of the stairs to help you back down."

I dressed quickly and went to join Maura, then we painstakingly made our way back down the stairs to the first floor. Going up was difficult, going back down was terrifying. I was so afraid of losing my balance, but Maura kept her arm around me the entire time. As we reached the landing, Maura whispered, "By the way, you smell delicious."

I shivered in delight. It was definitely good to be home.

We sat down to lunch at the kitchen island, where I discovered that getting into the higher chairs was somewhat more difficult than I anticipated it being.

"Why don't we take this into the dining room?" Maura asked helpfully, watching me struggle.

"No, it's okay. They keep telling me it can be anywhere from two weeks to a month before I'm released to outpatient therapy. If that's the case, I need to be able to do this stuff when I come home."

"Janie, if there's a chance you can come home in two weeks, we need to start looking for an apartment for you!" Ma admonished loudly. "Why didn't you tell me this sooner? How am I going to find you an accessible apartment in two weeks?"

I looked over at Maura and she gave me a small nod. Now was the time.

"Ma, I don't need an apartment. When I'm released to outpatient therapy, I'm coming here. To Maura's."

"Maura, that's very kind of you, but Janie and I both can't impose on you. Janie," she looked at me pointedly. "Maura's already done enough, honey. Don't you think?"

I cleared my throat and looked at Maura once more, just to be sure. She gave me an encouraging smile, and squeezed my hand under the lip of the kitchen island.

"Ma, listen. Maura and I, we've been doing a lot of talking. We've worked out a lot of what happened between us. Stuff that I'm not even sure you knew about. And we both came to the conclusion that I should come here when I come home."

I felt Maura squeeze my hand again. I knew there was more to say, that I wasn't done and that this wasn't the coming out we'd planned for, but I stopped because I was busy trying to gauge my mother's reaction.

"I don't understand, Jane," Ma sounded genuinely confused.

I took a deep breath. "Ma, I didn't go to New York because they offered me more money. New York came up at the time when I needed it most, because I had to get away. I couldn't watch Maura marry William."

"Why not? She was so happy." Ma looked angry at the memory.

"I know, and that's why I left. I didn't want to ruin her happiness, because Maura's happiness is all that ever mattered to me. I loved her, Ma. I was in love with her. I-" I looked over at Maura, watching the tears fall silently down her cheeks. I squeezed her hand again, before I brought our linked hands into view on the kitchen island. "Ma, I love Maura. I have for years. Long before she ever met William. I was always just too afraid to tell her. I was too afraid of being rejected by her. It turned out, she felt exactly the same way. We decided that we're going to be together. Neither of us wants to lose to the other again. So when I come home, whether it's in two weeks, or a month from now, I'm coming home to Maura."

Ma looked at our linked hands and Maura's silent tears, and was uncharacteristically quiet.

"You always said you weren't gay," Ma said quietly. "You dated men. Even when you were friends with Maura."

"Maura's the only woman I ever felt this way about. I dated men because I was trying to find someone to be happy with, Ma. I figured I couldn't have Maura, so I should look for someone else. Someone that would make you happy to see me with. The problem with that is when your heart already belongs to someone, there's no one else you can be happy with."

"It's true," Maura interjected quietly. "It's the reason William broke off our engagement."

"You said he got cold feet!" Ma accused Maura angrily. "You never said Janie broke up your marriage!"

"Wait, Ma, I had no idea that they had broken things off. I left for New York and didn't have any contact with Maura at all. It probably is my fault that they broke up, but that was never my intention. I left Boston to give Maura the marriage she wanted and to give myself the space I needed to get over her. I swear to god, Ma!"

"Angela, Jane didn't break up my engagement._ You_ assumed William got cold feet and I just let you continue to think that. Jane told me the truth at the very last second, and then left. She had no way of knowing what was going to happen. And William and I had argued before Jane left. He already knew that I didn't love him the same way I loved Jane. I didn't even realize that he could tell. I don't think I even realized it myself. Marrying William would have been a terrible mistake, and it was fortunate that he broke things off with me. It's taken me the better part of a year to understand that, but it was for the best, Angela."

Ma stood up, looking accusingly between the two of us. "You're not doing this to thank her? Like some kind of an... arrangement?" Ma pointed at me.

"WHAT?" I bellowed, disgusted at the thought. "Ma, I just told you that I'm in love, that I finally got to be with the person I've wanted more than anyone else in my life, and now you think this is some kind of an arrangement to pay Maura back for all she's done? Where do you come up with these things?!"

"It's just that-"

I cut her off. "Ma, you need to understand this right now. First of all, Maura does everything she does for all of us because she loves us. We are as much her family as her own family is. She has never done anything with the expectation of repayment. You of all people should know and understand that. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, you need to change your outlook on this situation, _fast_. This is it. This is forever. I'm going to marry Maura one day, and I want you there to give me away. I love her. This isn't going away. It's not changing. It's not going to fizzle out at some point. I've loved Maura for years, and I love that I can tell her that now, and know that she's felt the same way all this time."

I stopped and looked at Maura for a moment. She was looking at me with wide eyes but with a giant smile. I took that as a good sign and kept going.

"Maura and I still have a lot to work out, and we're taking things slowly. It's been a long time since we've really had a chance to be best friends, and we're working on that first. We're both sure of this though, and we're not going to let anyone's antiquated ideas or religious ideology stop us. Do you understand that?" I hated threatening my mother, because that wasn't my intention, but she had to understand that this was going to be how things were from that point forward.

"I didn't- that's not, I mean, the church, but that's not what I was worried about." Ma's words tumbled out of her mouth. "I guess I'm just shocked by this, and I'm sorry. You two spent so much time denying to everyone that there was ever anything between you, and I believed you. So now you're saying there always was and I feel like I have to go back and rewrite all of my memories."

"Ma, we had feelings for each other, but we never acted on them until after my accident. Well, I did, the day I left, but that shouldn't count. I didn't go about it the right way. All you need to do is keep going about life the same way you did before all of this. In essence, everything has changed, but everything is still exactly the same. You're still going to live in Maura's guesthouse. Maura's still going to be the wonderful person you already loved like a daughter. It's just that at some point in the future, if she'll have me, I'm going to make that official."

"Janie." Ma looked like she was going to cry.

"Ma, can't you just be happy for me? For both of us? We've been torturing ourselves for years. We can finally be happy. Can't you be happy too?" I begged.

"I'm just so shocked. I'm sorry, that's all it is. I'm just shocked." Ma had her napkin in her hands and was wringing it without realizing it.

"Well, that says a lot," I said, grinning at Maura.

Maura and Ma both looked at me with questions written all over their faces.

"Ma's shocked I finally found the right person. I think she had herself convinced I'd never do that," I stage whispered to Maura, and finally, Ma and Maura both laughed.

"Girls, I'm sorry. I should have reacted better. This is just a lot to take in, and I'm trying to process it."

"There's nothing to be sorry about, Angela. You're just looking out for your daughter," Maura said kindly.

"No, it was still wrong. I can't believe I even asked what I did. I owe you an apology, Maura. I'm sorry for even thinking what I did, let alone voicing it. I'm sorry. You've been so good to all of us, and that should have told me that you'll always take care of Jane. I'm sorry," Ma said contritely.

Maura leaned in to give Ma a tight hug, and I smiled, but decided to have some fun.

"Oh, sure! She's always been your favorite! You apologize to her! You still haven't even congratulated me. I mean, I've just come out of the closet to you, and told you I've found the person I want to spend the rest of my life with and..."

And all of a sudden I had both Ma and Maura hugging me, and I realized there was a time when I would have squirmed my way out of this situation, complaining at the top of my lungs, but instead, I just reveled in it. I'd finally come home.

* * *

**A/N:** Pssst... thank you again. ;)


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N: **So we finally get to learn Jane's tortoise's name in this chapter. ;)

* * *

Ma decided after our little conversation to take her lunch over to the guesthouse. Maura and I tried to get her to stay, but she said she wanted us to have as much time this weekend together as we could. We invited her back for pizza that night, but she turned us down.

"I'll call you in the morning and see if you want to do something. Otherwise I'll see you on Sunday to set up for Frankie's party," Ma promised.

"Ma, I came home to see you too!" I argued.

"I know. And you will. But right now, you two have things to work out and plan. If you need me, call me. Have fun, girls!" Ma closed the back door behind her and left Maura and I standing there, gaping.

"That went well, in the end," Maura said, sitting back down at the kitchen island to finish her lunch. "Sit down and eat, Jane. Your soup's getting cold."

"That could have gone a lot better. In fact, I expected her to be thrilled for us. I'm still worried about how she reacted. Did you get the feeling she was running away?" I hobbled up to the tall chair again, and was able to get up and into it faster this time.

"No. I think she was worried about you, and let that cloud her judgment and her reaction. I think she's happy for you, and that she was leaving to give us some privacy."

Maura took a bite of her sandwich and I took a bite of mine. We were both deep in thought for a few minutes when I sat up suddenly.

"Crap, Maura, where's your phone? Mine's upstairs!"

"Here Jane, what is it?" Maura asked as she slid her phone over to me, concerned.

I dialed my mother quickly, and didn't even bother to return her greeting when she picked up the phone. I had realized why she was so quick to run back to the guesthouse.

"Ma, don't you _dare_ tell anyone what we told you today. That's up to Maura and I to tell people. Don't go calling Carla Talucci and all of your cousins. And don't you dare tell Frankie and Tommy. We'll tell them when we're ready. Probably this weekend, but that's up to Maura and I."

"I may have already called Carla," Ma said quietly. "And my cousin Teresa when I got Carla's voicemail. I had to tell somebody!" she whined.

"Jesus, Ma! We're going to start calling you the Angela News Network. Don't tell anybody else. This isn't your news to share. This is sensitive and new to both Maura and I. Let us tell people as we're ready to do it," I grumbled.

"Okay," Ma said quietly. "Janie?"

"Yeah?" I asked, wary of what she was going to say next.

"I'm sorry about the way I reacted. I am happy for you." Ma sounded genuinely apologetic, and I was relieved.

"I know, Ma. And thank you."

"I love you."

"I love you too, Ma. We'll see you tomorrow sometime, okay?"

"Okay baby. Bye."

"Bye Ma."

I hung up and gave Maura back the phone. "She already called Carla Talucci and her cousin Teresa, which means everyone in the old neighborhood already knows. If Frankie and Tommy are working then it shouldn't be a problem, because they probably won't see anybody from the old neighborhood. I'm thinking we're probably going to need to tell everyone else this weekend too."

"We had planned to, hadn't we?" Maura asked gently.

"Yes, but originally I thought that if the timing didn't feel right, we'd have other chances. Ma has kind of taken that option from us," I said morosely.

"Well, you did really well. I'm proud of you."

"Proud of me?" I was puzzled. I hadn't done anything to be proud of.

"Yes, because the Jane Rizzoli that doesn't take no for an answer was back in full force."

I grinned at her.

"Finish your lunch. Then let's go get Jo Friday from your mother, and I'll reintroduce you to your tortoise."

"Where are the tortoises?" I asked, looking around. I'd actually forgotten about them in the excitement of coming home, and felt a bit guilty.

"Probably under the heat lamp in the laundry room. It's cold for them."

"I may need a heat lamp. Am I always going to be this cold?" Was Maura keeping the temperature in her house lower now? Or was I just that sensitive to the cold?

"You're cold? Why didn't you say something?" Maura rubbed my arms. "Stay here. I'll be right back."

Before I could object, Maura had jumped up and was dashing upstairs. I took the last few spoonfuls of my soup, and before I knew it, she was back.

"Here, put this on."

"This is yours," I said, fingering the soft cashmere of the sweater she wrapped around me. "I'll probably get food on it."

"It's warm and soft and comfortable. Don't worry about it," Maura said.

"Thank you," I said. "I like having you wrapped around me."

Maura was still standing in front of me, and I pulled her in by her hips, so she was between both of my legs. She wrapped her arms around my back, and I kissed her, softly. She ran her tongue along my bottom lip, and I opened up to her, letting her in and deepening the kiss. She broke away after a several moments to catch her breath, and I started kissing down the nape of her neck, licking and sucking lightly. She smelled so good, and I couldn't get enough of her. Slowly I let my hands wander under the hem of her sweater, and they came to rest on her sides, just to the side of her breasts. She moaned when my hands made contact with her bare skin, and the sound alone sent a shiver down my spine. She brought her lips back to mine, and we kissed again, deeply.

"Jane," she whispered against my lips.

"What?" I asked, almost irritated that we interrupted ourselves.

"If you keep this up, I'm not going to be able to keep my hands to myself."

I groaned, and pulled away from her slowly. She did have a point. Being home with Maura now, like this, was suddenly making the entire "taking things slowly" idea seem entirely unnecessary and stupid.

We both knew though, that it was neither unnecessary nor stupid. She threaded her fingers through mine and helped me up, out of the chair.

"Come on. Let's go see Bass and Acantha."

"Acantha?"

"Well, it seems like your tortoise has taken on a lot of your personality. So I named her Acantha, which means 'thorn' or 'prickle'."

"You did not." Thorn? Prickle? Was I really that much of a shrew?

"I did. The name is also found in Greek mythology. Acantha was a nymph that was loved by Apollo."

"And Apollo was the god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, music, poetry, and…" I trailed off when Maura started staring at me.

"What? I took an entire semester of mythology at junior college. And you, my sweet, are definitely a goddess of light and sun, truth and prophecy and healing."

"Jane," Maura said with a smile as she stood on her tiptoes and gave me a peck on my lips. "That's one of the sweetest things you've ever said to me."

"And yet I seem to have a thorny or prickly personality," I mumbled.

"Well, you do, sometimes," Maura said truthfully. "And so does your tortoise. You did not spend enough time with her, Jane. She's not at all accustomed to human interaction, and as a result, she's a bit… snappish."

"So my turtle is a snapping turtle?"

"Tortoise!" Maura actually stomped her foot as she exclaimed.

"Now which one of us is thorny?" I laughed.

We made our way into the laundry room, where Bass was under the smaller of two heat lamps, and Acantha, who was still no bigger than a standard dinner plate, was lounging under the larger heat lamp. Bass looked up at Maura miserably before retreating into his shell. Acantha hissed at us both, then ambled over to Bass' dish to take out a British strawberry.

"See?" Maura said, laughing. "We're going to have to get a bigger heat lamp. Bass can't keep getting chased away from the larger one because of Acantha's greedy personality."

"Hey, she just knows what she wants and doesn't take no for an answer," I defended my tortoise, even if I hadn't seen her in months and had no idea what she was like outside of her terrarium.

"Like her human?" Maura said hopefully.

"Sometimes," I replied honestly.

Maura shook her head. "Always. Come on, let's go get Jo, then get you settled upstairs. I have a few things I need to show you."

We walked across the yard to the guesthouse, and Ma opened the door for us.

"Hey Ma, can we have-"

I didn't get anything else out of my mouth before Jo came barrelling out of the house, barking at the top of her lungs. She ran circles around my legs, stopping only to sniff me and the crutches, and then circling around again as she yowled in delight.

"I think she misses you," Ma said with a laugh as she closed the door.

Maura and I laughed, and we started walking back toward Maura's house. Jo ran from me to the door at Maura's and back again, as I slowly made my way back.

"Sorry girl, I'm not as fast as I was," I said ruefully.

Apparently this phrase in dog-speak translates into "go potty", because Jo took off for the opposite end of the yard, relieved herself, and then trotted happily back up next to us for the rest of the slow walk back across the courtyard.

"Well, at least we won't have to walk her later," Maura said with a laugh.

We made it back across the courtyard to Maura's house, and I tried not to shiver uncontrollably. I really should have put the winter coat that Maura had given me back on. Maura noticed and wrapped me in a tight hug, rubbing my back.

"We've got to be careful that we don't make you sick. I should have put a jacket on you. I didn't think."

"I didn't think either. I just have to get used to cold, fresh air again," I said.

"It's supposed to be a little warmer tomorrow, and very sunny. Maybe we can go to the Common and walk for a little while? It'll be a good substitute for your therapy, and you could use the additional vitamin D production from exposure to the sun."

"That sounds like a nice idea. Let's see how I feel though, okay? I still get tired quickly, and it might be hard to walk in the park."

"Sure," Maura said. "Come upstairs. I want to show you some things."

We made our way up the stairs slowly, with Maura behind me and Jo at the top of the stairs, wagging her tail at us. Halfway up my pelvis started to wobble, and I almost brought both of us down.

"Easy. Sit. Sit on the step," Maura directed, and I listened to her. She sat down next to me, and wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me close to her.

"I'm sorry. I'm not used to the stairs, and I am so tired. Some of it is all of this excitement about being home, and I didn't sleep well last night, and I'm just... sorry Maura. This has to be exhausting for you too."

"Nonsense. I am thrilled that you're home. By the end of the weekend these stairs are not going to seem as daunting to you," Maura's reassurances comforted me, but I imagined that she was likely just as exhausted as I was.

"Thank you," I murmured, burying my head in her neck.

We stayed that way for a few minutes longer, just holding each other while my legs and pelvis rested. I started kissing her neck again.

"Jane," Maura said, her tone a warning.

"What?" I mumbled, sucking and nipping at the base of her neck, toward the back where her long hair fell.

"Let's not start this again," she said, only halfway emphatic.

"Start what?" I asked innocently, and gave her a sharp bite before licking over it, easing the sudden pain I'd inflicted.

"Oh god," Maura breathed.

"You make the most delicious sounds," I said, as I kissed my way up from her neck to her lips. "I just want to kiss you all the time," I whispered against her skin.

She started moving her hands from around my waist to around my neck, and I let go of one of my crutches to tangle my hands in her hair. Without realizing it, the crutch slid down the flight of stairs, landing at the bottom with a loud crash. We both jumped apart.

"Jesus," I breathed out. "I'm sorry."

"Stay here, I'll go get it."

Maura stood up and walked back down the stairs, carrying the crutch back up to me.

"Can you stand back up?" she asked gently from the stair below me.

"I don't know. Kissing you makes me weak in the knees," I joked.

"You and me both," Maura responded.

"You're supposed to hold me up!" I grinned.

"Just get up, Jane," Maura responded, and when I did she gave me a playful swat on the behind.

She handed me the crutch, and we slowly made our way back up the rest of the stairs. Instead of heading into Maura's bedroom we made our way into the guest bedroom. Where a beautiful four-post bed had once stood was now a sterile looking hospital bed.

"You don't have to sleep there, if you don't want to. It's just here because there's a chance sleeping on a regular bed might be uncomfortable for you. I brought you in here to show you this."

Maura walked over to the bureau, and opened some of the drawers.

"There's clothes for you in here. When it's time for you to come home, we can either go shopping for new clothes or have your old clothes pulled out of storage. Hopefully there's everything you need for the weekend in here, but if you need something just tell me."

She walked over to the closet and opened it. I walked over behind her.

"I cleaned this out for you. I don't know if you'll want to stay in here or just stay with me in my room when you come home, but this space is yours. When you're ready, we'll clean out my closet together and make room for you in there."

I looked up at the top shelf, back beyond where Maura's eyes would reach, and reached up to take down the small plastic bin that was up there.

"You left something," I said, reaching in and taking out the item that was on top. I instantly regretted pulling the bin out. The item in my hand was a yellow baby onesie. Inside the bin was another onesie and a receiving blanket. They looked like an adorable matching set.

"Oh shit, Maura, I'm sorry."

"I forgot that was in there," she whispered, trying hard to keep her emotions in check but failing miserably. She had paled instantly and her hands had started to shake.

I watched her race to cover her face and she just crumpled there, down to the floor so quickly that I didn't think I could catch her. I dropped down onto the floor next to her, and pulled her into my lap, ignoring the pain in my pelvis.

"Maura, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I wrapped my arms around her and rocked her back and forth while she cried.

"I couldn't bring myself to get rid of them. I bought them a few weeks after you left, as a distraction. I tried to buy those things as a reminder to myself that I wasn't alone, that the baby and I were going to be a family. By then William was gone, you were gone, and I was facing becoming a single mother with a massive custody battle forming. Those baby things were something to look at and think about the future, so I didn't dwell so much on the past… and then afterward I just couldn't throw them away." She sobbed into my shoulder and I squeezed her tighter. "My due date was two weeks ago this Saturday, when Frankie and Tommy spent the day watching the game with you. Normally I don't get so emotional over dates but for some reason the passing of my due date has reopened the wounds for me."

I continued to rub her back as she sobbed. "Oh Maura. Oh sweetie. I'm so sorry. Why didn't you tell me?" I asked softly.

Maura sniffled into my shoulder. "Your mother spent the day with me. She tried to keep me distracted, but I was a mess. I think I just needed to cry it out."

"I can only imagine how hard this is on you," I said as I rocked her back and forth gently. "I am so sorry. What can I do? How can I help you?"

Maura finally looked up at me and smiled at me weakly through her tears. "Just hold me," she whispered, and we sat like that for a long time, me rubbing her back and peppering her hair with kisses.

"You're not alone anymore," I whispered to her. "Even when I was gone, you were always in my heart. But I know that's not enough. I'm here now, and I'm sorry I ever left. I'm never going to leave you again, Maura." I continued to rock her back and forth and to rub her back, repeating my apology to her over and over again.

After a while Maura's sobs stopped, and eventually her breathing evened out. I realized that she had fallen asleep. I reached over and put the onesie back in the bin, and placed the plastic lid back on top. Then I quietly pushed it back into the closet and closed the door softly. I slowly slid us back toward the wall and leaned against it, taking some of the pressure off of my pelvis. I wrapped my arms back around Maura and dozed off with her in my lap, her head on my shoulder.

I'm not really sure how much time passed while we slept there like that. When I woke up the light had shifted in the room, and I figured we'd slept for at least an hour, if not more. Jo Friday was curled up next to us, snoring lightly. I shifted uncomfortably while trying to keep Maura as still as possible. There was nothing better than holding Maura in my arms, but my body definitely wasn't ready for long stretches on the floor up against the wall with someone on my lap. Maura sighed in her sleep, and I held her tighter. I felt like a real ass for opening up that box in front of her, but maybe it had opened a door for us. I was supposed to talk to Maura about her fears and what she was looking for out of this relationship. Although it would be painful, it looked like Maura definitely needed someone to talk to about her miscarriage. I tried to put myself in her shoes, losing my fiance and my best friend in one day, then realizing I was going to be a single mother with a custody battle coming up. Poor Maura couldn't even look forward to the joy the birth of her baby would have created, because it would have meant that William would have been ready to swoop in and take the baby from her. Maura was brave and had many resources available to her, but if I had been her, I would have been very scared and felt very alone.

It seemed like with each new day, I learned of some new way my departure from Boston had hurt someone. The guilt and the regret were becoming heavier and heavier burdens for me to carry. Accepting that I couldn't go back and change things was going to be difficult for me, but I understood that going forward, I could try to do right by all the people I'd hurt.

I debated waking Maura up. What had started out as simple discomfort was quickly becoming outright pain, but I didn't want to wake her. She seemed so peaceful sleeping in my lap. Between work and preparing for my arrival, I'm sure Maura was exhausted, maybe even more than I was. I decided to wait a little while longer. I rubbed gentle circles on Maura's back, and listened to her breathing.

Jo Friday must have sensed that I was awake, and she stood up, stretching. She yawned and then shook herself out, making her tags jingle.

"Shh, Jo!" I whispered to her.

Jo sat down on the carpet and wagged her tail, making a thumping noise, and causing Maura to stir.

She sat up, shifting some of her weight off of my pelvis and causing me to exhale in relief.

"Hey," I whispered to her, still rubbing her back.

"Did I fall asleep?" Maura asked, looking around. "Why are we on the floor?"

"This is where we wound up after we found the box in the closet," I said quietly, not wanting to upset her again. "I held you, and you fell asleep. I wound up dozing off too. I don't know how long we slept for, but I think it was a little while. It looks like the sun shifted." I pointed to the window.

Maura eased herself up and off of my lap, and even though sitting the way we had been had started to become painful, I missed her the instant she stood up. Maura looked over the bed to the clock on the nightstand. "It's almost four o'clock. I guess we slept for an hour or so."

"I needed the nap," I said, sheepishly.

"Me too, I think. Though sleeping on the floor in the corner of the guest bedroom isn't my idea of a nice place to nap."

"Really? It seemed like you thought my lap was comfy. You fit so nicely in it," I said proudly.

"It was comfortable, yes. But I do have a nice bed in my bedroom we can use the next time we want to nap."

"I wasn't planning on making a habit out of napping on the floor," I joked.

"Good."

"Maura?" I asked hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"Can I sleep with you tonight? I promise to behave," I said solemnly.

Maura looked at me with something akin to relief on her face. "I was hoping you would want to."

"Good. Could you help me up? I'm a little sore," I admitted.

"Oh, are you in pain? You're not supposed to support heavy weights with your legs and pelvis yet, Jane!" Maura's face registered shock at the realization.

"Relax, Maur. I'm okay. Really. And I don't care what the doctors say. If you need me to hold you, that's exactly what I'm going to do," I said softly.

Maura reached down and pulled me up into a standing position. I wobbled for a moment, but was otherwise fine. She handed me my crutches, and we made our way out of the guest bedroom.

"How about I order the pizza now, and we have an early dinner and then watch movies until we want to go to bed?"

"Can we have dinner on the couch?" I asked hopefully. Between climbing in and out of the chairs in the kitchen and sitting on a floor for over an hour, my pelvis was in full protest mode.

"Absolutely."

"Good. I like that plan. My butt needs somewhere soft to sit," I laughed.

"You should have woken me up," Maura admonished.

"I liked holding you too much," I admitted.

"You could have injured yourself, or caused your hardware to shift or given yourself a muscle strain." Maura's tone told me this was serious stuff, but it still didn't matter to me.

"And it would have been worth it to injure myself if holding you brought you even an ounce of comfort."

"You brought me more than an ounce of comfort," Maura said quickly. "I'm sorry I reacted the way I did when you pulled out that onesie. I don't even know why I reacted that way."

"You have nothing to apologize about. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me. I'm here now though, and if you want to talk about it, or anything else, I'm willing to listen," I offered.

"I know, Jane. Thank you," Maura said sincerely as we finally made our way downstairs.

* * *

**IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:** The next chapter will give this story a rating change to M for mature. This means if you're not a registered user here, and you come to the site to search for this story, you must set the search parameters to include M-rated stories. The story isn't disappearing, but from the next chapter onward will carry an "M" rating and it will not be visible in regular search results. Again, remember, Sunday's update will be M-rated.

Thank you, that is all, please continue going about your business. :)


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N:** Well, here we go with our rating change.

* * *

We ordered our usual pizza, half mushroom, half pepperoni and settled in on the couch to watch a comedy while we waited for it to be delivered. After that afternoon, we both needed a little comic relief. I jokingly moaned to Maura that I couldn't have a beer, and she politely refrained from having a glass of wine in solidarity with my medically imposed sobriety. I had no idea how long it would be before the doctors gave me clearance for that stuff, but I hoped it wouldn't be long. Something about resected bowels and lacerated livers and terms I was too grossed out by to find out more about was keeping me from enjoying a cold one, and it bothered me.

"I don't care what the doctor says. When I come home for good, the first thing I'm doing is having a beer," I said resolutely.

"Really? _That's_ the first thing you're going to do?" Maura quipped as she leaned forward to grab the remote and pressed play.

"Okay, well, you know, after we do, um, other stuff," I said, grinning at Maura's sarcasm.

"What other stuff?" Maura asked, feigning innocence.

"You know," I mumbled.

"Maybe I don't. Maybe I want to hear you say it, Jane."

The way she said my name gave me butterflies in my stomach.

"God Maura, how do you do that?"

"Do what?" She asked, the flirtation in her voice obvious.

"Send a shiver down my spine while making me very hot and bothered?"

"It's easy with you," she said with a smirk. "So, do you think you'll be ready for that other stuff when you come home permanently? It's only a month away, if we're both lucky."

"I hope so. I don't know. I want to be. I just don't feel very attractive, and I haven't even been given clearance for that kind of activity yet. But emotionally, if we keep going the way we're going right now, I'm probably going to combust if we don't do it the second I get home after they release me to outpatient therapy." I gave her a sheepish smile.

"Based on the surgery you had, your pelvis is still healing. And intercourse after a hysterectomy is tricky. You should be at a point though, where you are physically healed enough to participate in it," Maura paused, choosing her words carefully. "You may not enjoy penetration very much at first. It's going to feel different, and not just because you'll be with a woman. Your anatomy is a bit different now, and we'll have to… make adjustments for what feels best for you. Even if you can't or don't want to be penetrated though, there are still ways to make you feel good."

I shuddered. "Do you think it's going to hurt?"

"Not if we're doing it the right way," Maura said with a wink. "No, seriously, by the time we are ready to take that step, you will be well on your way to healed. We're going to have to get to know what each other likes anyway, just like with any new partner. I wouldn't worry, Jane. As an expert in human anatomy, I know more than one way to please you," Maura said confidently.

"I'm worried that I won't know what to do," I said suddenly.

"You will. And like I said, we're going to take our time and learn what each other likes. I think the beauty of it is really going to be that what normally feels good for you is likely also going to feel good for me. That's one perk to having a partner of the same sex."

"I was reading up on some of my medical conditions a few nights ago, on the tablet you gave me. Everything I read said that women lose their appetite for sex after a hysterectomy. Do you think that's true?" I was genuinely worried about that.

"Well, everyone is different. And in your case, your hysterectomy didn't include your ovaries. That is good for a few reasons. The first is that your body is still producing hormones, so eventually your sex drive will come back."

"I didn't have much of a sex drive to begin with, remember?" I interrupted her.

"I just thought… never mind," Maura trailed off, blushing.

"What did you think? Please, tell me," I encouraged.

"I just figured that you didn't have a lot of sex because you wanted me. I realize how egotistical that sounds, and that wasn't my intention. It was simply an illogical thought," Maura said, embarrassed.

"No, it wasn't illogical at all Maura. As usual, you are spot on. And I didn't have a lot of sex, but I usually took care of myself," I admitted.

"Oh really?" Maura's interest was definitely piqued.

"Yes," I said, blushing furiously.

"So did I," Maura said with a shrug. "Usually on nights after we'd be at the Robber, squished together in one of their booths. If you decided to go home instead of coming here, I'd usually come home and take care of myself," Maura said, lowering her voice as she told me her secret.

"I usually decided to go home instead of coming here _because_ I needed to take care of myself," I said shyly. "I had no idea that you were just as turned on."

Maura was definitely warming up to this conversation, and admittedly, so was I, in a prudish, rather embarrassed sort of way. Maura continued her admissions. "I used to love it when you'd put your arm behind my shoulders in the booth, or if you'd lean in close to tell me something. I used to crave you doing that. Or doing anything that brought you closer to me."

"You don't know how many times I had to stop myself from kissing you when I did that. I wanted to, so badly. There were even times when I thought I would just do it and then blame it on the alcohol if you reacted badly. But in the end, I didn't want to risk being rejected by you." I shrugged a bit, embarrassed to admit it but glad to finally get it out in the open.

"I wouldn't have rejected you," Maura responded earnestly. "As a matter of fact, Murray probably would have banned us from the Dirty Robber because I'd probably have taken you right then and there, in the booth. In front of everyone."

"No, you wouldn't have," I argued, scandalized.

"Maybe. My feelings for you ran that deep, and I wanted you that badly."

"And now?" I asked.

"Now I want you even more," Maura said. "Now that I know that I can have you, that you want to be mine as badly I want to be yours, that we are actually a 'we', well, let's just say that if I was home alone tonight, I'd take care of myself."

I gulped, and I know Maura heard it.

"But we're not at that stage yet, and I'm not going to rush things. We're going to let you heal and get medical clearance and then we're going to do it right," Maura said confidently, reassuringly.

"You don't mind waiting?" I asked, knowing just how long it could take me to feel comfortable with the idea of sex, even when I was healthy and feeling like my normal self.

"I've waited years for you Jane. I'm certainly not going to rush things now. Besides, the anticipation will make the moment that much better when it finally arrives."

"Thank you," I said sincerely. "What were the other reasons, by the way?"

"Other reasons?"

"Yes, you were talking about my hysterectomy and you said it was good that they'd saved my ovaries for a couple of reasons. I interrupted you before you could tell me all of them."

"Oh, well, the other reason it's good that they saved your ovaries is because that means we can have your baby. If you wanted. I mean, I don't even know if you want children and I don't want you to think I'm rushing anything and I didn't want to be too forward and-"

I leaned over and kissed Maura. "You're beautiful when you're flustered and using run on sentences, did you know that?"

"Sometimes it's easy for me to forget that most people don't talk about things like that when they're dating."

"We're beyond dating, don't you think? I mean, I'd like to take you out on dates, and do things properly, but you and I had years of dating each other, even if we didn't call it that. So now is as good of a time as any to have that conversation, if you wanted."

"Do you? Do you want to have kids?" Maura asked shyly.

"I gave up on the idea when you started dating William. You were the only person I ever wanted to raise a family with. Now that I can't have a baby, I don't know what to think. I wasn't all that upset when the doctor told me I couldn't have kids anymore. My mother, on the other hand, was very upset. I'm still not sure though, if I ever really wanted to carry a child. It's one thing to be a mother, it's another thing to be pregnant and go through childbirth. But the idea of raising a child, especially with you, is enticing even if it is terrifying."

"You were wonderful with TJ as an infant," Maura pointed out gently. "You'll make a wonderful mother, Jane. And if we wanted to find a donor and harvest your eggs, I could carry your baby. Then it really would be_ our_ baby."

"Do you want to have kids, Maura? Even after what you've been through?" I asked gently, not wanting her to get upset.

Maura looked up, over my shoulder for a moment while she gathered her thoughts, then looked back at me. She spoke slowly, clearly, as if what she was recounting was a history that wasn't her own.

"I was so scared, when I first found out I was pregnant. For a lot of reasons. First, it meant that everything with William was permanent. It was happening whether I wanted it to or not. I'd spent two years telling myself that I wanted a life with him. I made myself believe it. But the day that pregnancy test came back positive, I suddenly realized that what I wanted no longer mattered. We were getting married in two weeks and we were going to be parents in just under nine months. There was no turning back at that point, despite the quiet voice in the back of my head that kept urging me to."

She sighed, then continued.

"But I was scared for other reasons too. I was afraid of the kind of mother I would be. I wanted so much to be the best of my mother, the best of Hope and the best of your mother, all rolled into one, and I didn't know if I could do that. I wanted my baby to grow up knowing that he or she was loved no matter what. I never wanted my son or daughter to wonder, like I had, if he or she was loved. Even though that pregnancy was accidental and unplanned, I never wanted that baby to feel like an unwanted occurrence.

"But despite all that fear, I was excited too. That baby was a chance to love someone, cherish them, and experience motherhood. I spent hours daydreaming about what it would be like to hold the baby for the first time and experience things like the baby's first words or first steps. I was devastated when I lost the baby, Jane. But if I had the chance to try again, with you, I wouldn't hesitate. If it was something you really wanted, I would try again, only as long as it was with you."

I wiped a tear off my cheek that I didn't know I'd shed, then I leaned over and kissed her gently. "Maura, I have no doubt in my mind that you would have been the world's best mother. When I'm better, when we're settled, we can make plans for that, if you want."

She smiled at me, her eyes a little red and ready to spill over. "I think we'd make good parents."

"I don't think it, I know it," I said with a smile.

We sat there, snuggled together for a few minutes. The doorbell rang and our dinner had finally arrived. Maura got up to get the pizza and came back into the living room with everything we'd need to eat.

We started out like we always had, at opposite ends of the couch while we ate our pizza. Eventually we finished eating, and when we shifted to put our plates on the coffee table, we each wound up closer to one another. Then as the evening progressed, we wound up closer still, until eventually Maura was resting her head on my shoulder and I had my arm wrapped around her back. Maura was absentmindedly drawing figure eights on my thigh with her finger, a habit she'd had since we first started doing this years before. I was amazed that even after so much time apart, she still did that without even thinking.

I thought back to the years before William, when Maura and I would end up this way on the couch without even thinking about it. How stupid were we? How could we ignore the magnetism between us? How could we deny ourselves for so long?

"I was so stupid," I muttered.

"What?" Maura asked, using the remote to pause the movie and shifting slightly so she could look up at me. "What did you say?"

"I was so stupid, Maura. How many times did we sit here, just like this, and do this in the past? How could I have never said to you that I loved you? I just sat there and told myself to be happy that I was sharing space with you. All it would have taken was three little words, and our entire world would have been different." I shook my head, ashamed of how much time I had wasted.

"I knew that you loved me, Jane! And I wish that you knew that I loved you too. You can't dwell on that, though." Maura squeezed me, but it did little to assuage my feelings.

"But it's all I do. It's all I _c__an_ do," I said despondently.

"We can't go back. We can only move forward. I could have told you I had feelings for you too, but I didn't."

"Do you regret it?"

"Yes, I do," Maura said, and the regret was evident in her voice.

"You seemed so happy with William though." I said it softly, with no malice. It was simply the truth, something we both accepted as part of the past. William was not someone or something to hold against Maura. She'd loved him, in her own way, and that wasn't something she'd done to hurt me.

"There was a time when I thought I could be happy with him. We were a lot alike, and he was fun and sweet and easy to get along with. But he was never you, Jane. With you I always felt safe, protected and loved. With William I felt loved, but I never felt complete, and the way he loved me was so different from the way I knew you loved me. I kept waiting for that moment with William. I kept waiting for him to make me feel complete. I thought if I was patient, it would come, but it never did." She looked down at her hands, as if the answer to that problem had been there all along.

"What if I can't keep you safe and protect you now, Maura?" I whispered.

"Jane, I don't know what the future will bring. I don't know if you're going to be as physically capable as you were before your accident. But I already feel safe and protected with you. Although you kept me physically protected and saved me from bodily harm more times than I care to count, it was my heart that you protected more than anything else, and ever since that night at the rehab when you told me you missed me and you loved me, I realized that you never really stopped trying to protect me."

"I thought I dreamed that," I said quietly. "I wasn't sure that was real. But if it happened the way I thought it did, I meant everything that I said, Maura."

"You were sedated," Maura explained gently. "And at first I didn't think you knew what you were saying. But your reaction to seeing me told me more than any words could. You keep saying that you are afraid that the Jane you were before your accident is gone, but she's right here, sitting with me and looking out for me, and she was there in full force that night at the rehab."

I blushed. "You kissed me that night. On the forehead. Before I ever said anything to you."

"I did," she admitted softly. "I needed to feel you. I needed to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I wanted you to feel my relief. It was the first time I'd seen you since you were off of life support. I figured you wouldn't remember any of it," Maura laughed dryly. "I should have known that a mere sedative wouldn't stop Jane Rizzoli though."

I smiled at her. "If you give me a chance Maura, I will try to make you feel happy and complete. And I'm going to try really hard to get back to the way I was, so I can protect you physically too."

"I hope we won't need protecting. But if we do, I have no doubt that you are capable of protecting us both, even now."

"You have too much faith in me," I disagreed.

"No Jane. You just don't have enough in yourself, so that's why I have enough for both of us," Maura said as she hugged me close to her again.

"The only thing I'm certain of, is that I love you. I never stopped loving you. I want to go back to being the detective you knew, the brave and foolish badass you loved so much, but I'm terrified that I will never be able to. I'm trying so hard, Maura. I'm scared though. I'm scared that I'm going to fail. I'm scared that I'm going to let you down. I'm scared that you're going to realize that I'm not worth all of this effort and money and caring that you've put into making a life with me, and I'm scared you're going to take it all away. I need you, and I can't do this without you, but you deserve more than this." I paused, trying to keep the tears out of my voice. "You deserve someone whole."

"Oh Jane," Maura shook her head sadly. "We've come too far for that, beautiful girl. You've overcome so much, and you get better with each new day. I want to be a part of this with you. I watch how far you've come, and how hard you're trying, and I fall in love with you over and over again. I'm not going anywhere. Not without you. You must believe me. I promise you that."

"I love you. I'm going to make sure you know that, every day," I promised.

"I already do know, but I certainly wouldn't mind if you showed me," Maura said with a grin. "And likewise, I'll do the same for you."

"Good." We snuggled in next to each other, and Maura unpaused the movie. We watched the rest of the movie in silence, but it was a comfortable silence punctuated with our laughter at the actors' antics.

When the movie was over, Maura stood up and stretched, then carried our empty dishes and cups into the kitchen. "Do you want to watch something else?" she asked when she came back.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"A little after eight."

"This is really pathetic, especially since we had a nap this afternoon, but I'm exhausted and I doubt I'll be able to stay up for another movie."

"I have a suggestion for what we can do, but I don't know if you want to. It might be too much."

I cocked my head to the side, puzzled. "What did you have in mind?"

"I'd like to take a bath. Would you like to join me?"

"Oh, um…" I blushed. Yes, I did want to join her. But no, not looking like I did, and no, because if left to my own devices I'd probably not be able to control myself.

Maura noticed my dillema. "Just a bath, Jane. In the tub, with the jets, and some nice candles and bubble bath. A good way to unwind after the day today."

"I'm not sure. Why don't you take a bath and I'll wait for you in bed?" I asked.

"It's okay. It was just an idea," Maura said, her tone completely neutral.

"It's just, it's hard for me to let you see me like this. And I'm nervous."

"I understand," Maura said with a smile. "Let's go up and get ready for bed. Tomorrow's another day."

We let Jo Friday out to take care of business and waited for her to come back in before inching our way up the stairs. By the time we reached the top, I was sore and out of breath. Maura looked at me with concern. "Are you in pain?" she asked.

"I'm just not used to that yet," I told Maura as we made our way into her bedroom. I didn't want to tell her that I ached all over. We hadn't done much, but coming home was hard work. My body still had a lot of recovering to do.

"Come on," she said, taking my hand gently. She led me into the bathroom and started filling the tub. "Don't worry," she said quickly, but gently. "I won't be joining you."

"No, Maura, it's okay. And maybe you should take a bath. I think I'm making you tense. I'll be fine once I lie down."

Maura was busy taking things out of her cabinets and arranging arranging candles. "Nonsense." She put a few drops of bath oil in the water, then some bubble bath. "This will soothe your muscles and help you to relax and fall asleep tonight."

I sat down on the edge of the tub, resigned to the fact that I'd be taking my second bath of the day. It's not that I had anything against bathing so much, just that I felt like I'd taken it away from Maura.

"Here, let me help you with that," Maura said, taking the crutches from me and leaning them against the wall.

I waited for her to walk out of the bathroom after that, but instead she returned to me and lifted off my shirt.

"I can do this," I said quietly.

"Oh," Maura said, clearly embarrassed. "Yes, you can. I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

She turned, and started to leave. I felt terrible for embarrassing her.

"Wait!" I said, grabbing her hand and pulling her gently back toward me. I stood up on shaky legs and kissed her hand before I released it.

"Stay with me," I said, without even realizing the words had come out of my mouth. "Come in with me."

"Really?" Maura asked, confused. "I thought-"

I quickly finished undressing and got into the tub, covering myself with the bubbles as fast as I could.

"I know what I said, Maura. But you wanted to take a bath, and here's the bathtub."

"Are you sure?" She was very hesitant. I could tell she very badly wanted to join me, but was afraid of crossing a line.

"Yes. Please come in."

Maura watched me as she took her pants and underwear off, leaving them in a pile on the floor. She pulled her sweater off and let it drop to the floor as well. I couldn't take my eyes off of her as she reached back and unclasped her bra. She let go of the bra and reached over, turning off the light in the bathroom. The light from the candles flickered along the walls, giving Maura's beautiful skin a soft glow as she made her way to the edge of the tub.

"Are you sure you're okay with this, Jane?"

I nodded and reached a hand up for her. "Yes. Sit with me."

She climbed into the tub, and leaned back against me. I wrapped my arms around her waist and bent my legs at the knees to make room for her to sit back between them. She sighed as she leaned back and our skin made first contact.

I kissed her neck, slowly.

"Mmm," she hummed. "This is nice."

"Yes, it is," I said between kisses. After a few more kisses I reached over and grabbed the washcloth, gathering up some of the bubbles and starting to wash Maura's shoulders. "You're tense, Maura." I kneaded her shoulders, working the warm bath water into her skin. "What's wrong?"

"I just think it's residual."

"Residual?" I asked.

"A culmination of nine months of anger, sadness, fear and stress," Maura said simply.

"I'm sorry," I said as I massaged her shoulders and neck. "I wish I had a way to undo all of that."

"Not all of it was your fault, Jane."

"I'd still take it all away if I knew how," I whispered sadly.

"Keep doing what you're doing," Maura said simply. "That feels wonderful."

I continued massaging down Maura's back, then made my way up to her shoulders again, thoroughly enjoying the sounds she was making. When I got back to her shoulders she leaned back to rest against me, turning her head so she could kiss me.

"I like this," I said quietly.

"Me too," she said, her eyes several shades darker than normal.

I picked up the washcloth and washed down her arms, over her flat stomach and down over her thighs. I let the washcloth glide over her center, making my way back up to her stomach, when she whimpered.

"Jane," she whispered.

I kissed her neck. "Mmm?"

"Touch me," she whispered, so low I almost didn't hear her.

I froze, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other holding the washcloth out in front of her, my lips against her neck.

"Please Jane," she repeated, more urgency to her voice. "Touch me."

I let the washcloth drop into the water, but I couldn't move my hands. I was just stuck, unsure of myself. Maura reached forward and took my left hand, that had been holding the washcloth, and brought it down to her center, taking my breath away. She took my right hand from her waist and brought it up to her breast, cupping it and giving it a gentle squeeze. "Touch me," she repeated.

I took a deep breath and resumed kissing her neck, began kneading her breast, and finally, I let my hand slip between her legs.

Maura's gasp at the contact sent a tingle down my spine.

I let my hand circle, lazily, at the same pace I was kissing her neck. "Are you sure?" I asked quietly against her.

"Yes."

A few more strokes and Maura whispered "Are _you_ sure, Jane?"

"Yes. I mean, you did say if you were home alone tonight you were going to take care of this yourself, right? So I'm just helping you out."

"Is that all? Is that why you're doing this?" Maura asked, and I stilled my hand.

"Of course not. I want to do this for you. I want to please you. I want to show you how much I love you, Maura. Do you want this?"

"Yes. Don't stop."

I resumed circling her clit, gently, and kissed her neck again. We continued like that for a few minutes, and I listened to Maura's breath quicken. Maura shifted slightly, turning so that she could kiss me.

"I love you," I whispered against her lips. "I love you so much, Maura Isles."

She wrapped one hand around my neck and kissed me hard as she came. I continued stroking her, until it became too much and she cried out, gently pushing my hand away as she melted back against me. I wrapped my arms around her and held her, kissing her neck.

"Mmm," Maura moaned after a few minutes. "Jane."

I smiled against her shoulder. "Maura, have you lost your verbal communication skills?" I asked jokingly.

"Mmm," Maura hummed again, nestling back against me in a sated haze.

"Are polysyllabic words a problem for you at the moment?" I continued to push.

I felt Maura nod.

"Yes!" I exclaimed, pumping my fist in victory.

Maura laughed, a full, throaty laugh that I hadn't heard from her in years. I could have come just from that sound alone and the joy it brought me.

"I love you," she said finally.

"She speaks!" I laughed, and she pinched me.

"Ow! Watch it lady! What kind of a thank you is that?" I wailed with fake hurt.

"Oh, I haven't properly thanked you. But I will. In fact, trade places with me." Maura had started to sit up and shift in the water.

I shook my head. "It's okay."

"No Jane, it's only fair-"

"I'm not ready," I blurted out. "I'm sorry. I'm just not ready. And I'm not keeping score, okay? I liked doing that for you. I liked seeing what it did to you. I liked pleasing you. But physically and emotionally, I'm just not ready for that for myself. Not yet."

"Okay," Maura said, cupping my cheeks. "I'm sorry Jane. I didn't mean-"

"You didn't do anything wrong. I'm okay. I'm just not in the right state of mind to have the same thing done to me. I don't feel sexy. I don't feel attractive. I feel like someone who, three months ago, was considered among the dead. I want to feel alive and loved again, and you help me feel like that every day. But I'm not ready for that step yet, and I'm sorry." I shuddered, more from the thought of making Maura feel bad than anything else. I wasn't lying though. I really wasn't ready.

"I didn't mean to make you feel forced or uncomfortable. I'm sorry. We said we were going to go slowly and look what I've done." I thought Maura was going to start crying, and I felt even worse for ruining what had, up until that point, been a very special moment between us.

"I don't regret it, Maura. Not at all. You didn't do anything wrong, okay? I just need more time."

"Okay." Maura looked at me uncertainly, and I kissed her to reassure her.

"Everything's all right, Maura," I squeezed her gently, and kissed her cheek. "It's really okay. I'm sorry I'm not ready yet, but I don't think it will be long. I just need time to look and feel less… broken. I need more time to feel confident about myself and my body. I don't think I could do that tonight, because I'm just not ready."

"I understand." I wasn't sure that she did, but she wasn't capable of lying, so I let it go.

"Let's go get dressed for bed. The water's starting to get cold."

"Okay," Maura said, standing up. She got out of the tub and then held a hand out for me. "Jane?"

"Yeah?"

"Just so you know, I think you're beautiful. And strong."

I stepped out of the tub and wrapped my arms around her, relishing in the contact between us. "And hopefully I'll feel that way soon. I really want to make love to you. I really want you to make love to me. But I want to be in the right frame of mind, so that I can truly enjoy that moment with you. Please understand that's the only reason why I'm not ready, okay? I'm not afraid of that moment. I'm not afraid of you. I want you. I want to be with you. I love you, Maura, and I know that you love me too."

"When you're ready, I'll make sure it was worth the wait," Maura said with a smile. "And I'll wait until the end of time, if that's what you need."

I smiled at her and wrapped a towel around her shoulders before wrapping myself in a towel.

"Thank you."


	31. Chapter 31

**A/N:** A little early tonight. The internet at home is acting weird and I wanted to get this posted on the off chance it went down. I hope you'll like it.

* * *

It didn't take us long to fall asleep that night, spooned together on Maura's bed. My last thought before dropping off was that it had been way too long since I was the big spoon to Maura's little spoon. We used to fall asleep just like this, and back then, neither of us was willing to admit how much comfort we took from each other.

Maura woke up first the next morning, tugging my arm tighter around her and giving our intertwined fingers a kiss.

"Morning," I mumbled, squeezing her back.

"Morning," she said cheerfully, already fully awake. "Did you sleep well?"

"I slept wonderfully," I answered honestly. "I missed sleeping in a bed that doesn't have rails on the sides. But more than that, I missed sleeping with you, like this."

"The nights we slept like this were always the nights I slept best."

"I didn't sleep for more than a few hours at a time for months after we stopped doing this," I said sadly. "We used to fall asleep together what, two, three times a week?"

"At least. Sometimes more," Maura admitted.

"Giving that up was hard for me."

"I missed it too, Jane. I used to get irrationally angry at William for not spooning with me," Maura said with a sigh. "He always said he couldn't sleep unless he was flat on his back. I don't think he ever understood why I'd get so standoffish at bedtime."

"Heh," I laughed lightly, "I guess nothing compares to a Jane Rizzoli snuggle." I meant it jovially, as a means to give Maura something to laugh about, but she was completely serious when she rolled over to look at me.

"You're right. Nothing does. William wasn't even a close second. I kept telling myself just to give him a chance, that we were more compatible than I thought. I kept telling myself I could not compare him with you, because that was unfair to him, but that's all I ever did. I'd spend time with him and imagine how much more fun it would be to do the same things with you."

I looked at Maura sadly. "I spent a lot of time wishing you were spending time with me. I was very jealous, and very hurt, when I realized I'd been replaced."

"I'm sorry." Maura's apology was genuine.

"You have nothing to apologize for. Why would you apologize for falling in love?"

Maura shrugged. "Because it wasn't with you? Because the entire time I was with William I felt like I was cheating on you? Because William knew he couldn't compare with you, and yet I still committed to him and nearly had his baby? Because I let you walk away because we both knew that was the only way we were going to get over each other?"

"You asked me not to leave," I said, trying to console her.

"I let you walk away long before you actually left, Jane. We both know that. I just didn't know how to stop loving you. I thought distancing myself from you would make it easier."

"Leaving Boston was the hardest thing I ever did. Walking away from you that day, in front of my apartment, tore my heart to shreds. I never felt so empty and alone."

"I should have chased after you. I mean, I ran out of the building after you, but I should have gone to you in New York. I should have found you there and begged you to come home."

"I'm glad you didn't see me in New York. I was reckless and stupid. I didn't care about anything anymore. I woke up, went to work, took a lot of unnecessary risks, worked lots of overtime, then came home, drank myself to sleep, and woke up the next morning to do it all over again. I kept waiting for something to give. I kept waiting for the longing to go away. I kept waiting to make a mistake at work that would put me out of my misery. I never imagined how something as simple as a train ride to Boston would bring me to the point I'd been silently hoping for."

"Oh Jane," Maura reached out and wiped away a tear I hadn't realized I'd shed.

"Let's not talk about this anymore," I asked.

"Let's go out for breakfast and then walk around the Common for a while," Maura suggested.

"We could eat here, this way people can't sit and stare at me," I offered instead.

"Jane, if people stare, it's only because they're enraptured by your beauty. You have no idea how gorgeous you are."

"I have an inch of hair on my head, am paler than the snow on the ground, and am covered in scars. Oh, and I walk with a lurch. I'm sure that's going to do wonders for everyone's appetite," I sassed.

"You're ridiculous. Get up, we're going out," Maura said decisively.

"I don't want to. Can we stay here?" I was starting to whine, and was hating myself for it. But there was no way I wanted to go out in public looking and walking like I did.

"Why? I mean, you can't get up and go out to eat in rehab. Why not take advantage of the weekend?"

Leave it to Maura to be logical.

"Because I look like a freak, Maura!"

Maura got up out of bed and stomped around to my side. "That's it. Get up!"

"What?" I asked, in total disbelief. Was she _ordering_ me out of bed?

"Get. Up. We're going out. If you won't believe me when I tell you how beautiful you are, I'm going to show you. Up I said!"

"Maura-" I couldn't believe this was happening. I couldn't believe how much Maura's voice had risen. Was she actually yelling at me?

"No. Get up," Maura said sharply. "Or go back to rehab."

"What?!" First she was ordering me out of bed, then she gave me an ultimatum? All because I didn't want to go out for breakfast?

"I'm tired of this, Jane. I'm going to show you how beautiful you are. How tough you are. How badass you are. And I don't want to hear, even once, how you don't think you are. _Get__. __Up_."

I sat up in the bed, stunned at Maura's words. "You'd send me back to rehab?"

"Do you really want to find out?" she challenged.

And the truth was, I didn't want to find out, so I stood up.

"Wait there, I have the perfect outfit for you," she said excitedly.

Maura dashed off into the guest bedroom, and I stood there, wondering what I'd just gotten myself into, or how her mood could change so quickly.

An hour later, I was dressed in a pair of designer jeans that seemed to hug me in all the right places, a t-shirt and a hooded sweatshirt. Maura helped me into the same pair of snow boots from the day before and my winter coat. The outfit was decidedly casual, yet distinctly more fashionable than what I normally wore. Even with the hooded sweatshirt on. From out of her closet she came up with a Boston Red Sox baseball cap for me to wear. I realized it was the cap I'd given her the first time I took her to a Sox game. My heart melted at the fact that she had kept it, after all this time.

Maura had dressed similarly, in a pair of jeans that I'd never seen before, a cami, an off the shoulder long-sleeved t-shirt, and her winter coat. She'd done her hair up in a loose ponytail.

"You look beautiful. You should wear jeans more often," I complimented as I admired her.

"I thought it would be fun if we matched," Maura replied. "And by the way, you look great, Jane."

I started to shake my head, but Maura gave me a dirty look, so instead I just looked around for my crutches.

We called over to my mother and asked if she wanted to join us for breakfast, but she declined. Maura let Jo Friday out and Ma took her into the guesthouse to watch her while we were gone.

We got into Maura's Mercedes and she drove us to a diner not far from the Common. Maura's expensive car looked a bit out of place in the diner's parking lot, but it didn't seem to even occur to Maura. We walked in and the hostess sat us in a booth toward the back.

"Maura, do you think maybe we can go to a bank today? I have no cash on me at all. As a matter of fact, I don't even know where my ATM card wound up." I didn't like being out without cash, or a means of getting cash.

"I think your mother has your driver's license, credit card, and your ATM card. They were in your pocket when the accident happened and I'm fairly certain they were given over to your mother with the rest of your personal items when she came to Hartford. But for now, I've got you covered," Maura reassured me.

"That's really sweet of you, but the point of me going to a bank is so that you don't have to keep paying for stuff. I can afford to take us out to breakfast now and then."

"We'll worry more about that when you're released to outpatient therapy. For now, let's just enjoy the day on my tab. Besides, you'd have to go in and see a teller without your ATM card, and I don't think your bank has Saturday hours, does it? And they won't let you take out money without valid identification. So just let me get breakfast today, okay?"

I groaned, and slouched a little in my seat. "Thank you, Maura. When I come home, I'm going to take us out on a nice date or twelve."

"Or twelve?" Maura asked, with an amused smile on her face.

"Or thirteen. Or fourteen. Enough to make it feel like I've repaid you, even a tiny bit, for everything you've done."

"I told you, I don't expect to be repaid." This time, when Maura said it, there was no bite in her tone. To her it was just a simple fact. To me it was a huge debt of gratitude.

"I know. But I'll feel better if I can do something nice for you in return for all the nice things you've done for me."

"That's sweet of you Jane. I'm going to look forward to those dates."

"Me too."

We opened up our menus and perused the diner's offerings. Maura ordered a bowl of fresh fruit and some oatmeal, and I ordered chocolate chip pancakes with bacon and hashbrowns.

"You should have some fruit with that," Maura said.

"Chocolate comes from cocoa beans, and beans are a vegetable. Vegetables are healthy like fruit, so I'm good." I nodded as I said this, trying to give myself an air of authority that I knew Maura would never buy.

Maura grinned. "It's amazing how you can justify that meal."

"I'm supposed to pack on calories anyway."

"Not empty calories!" Maura admonished. "You need to make healthy choices if you want to get your strength back."

"I'll have fruit with lunch," I said, putting her off. I had no intention of having fruit with lunch.

"I'm going to hold you to it," Maura warned.

"I believe you," I said with a grin. We'd see about that.

The waitress brought us our coffee, and a little while later our food, and we enjoyed a quiet but comfortable breakfast. Maura ordered us two more coffees to go, and we headed out to the Boston Common.

"I can't carry the coffee and my crutches," I complained as we got out of the car. "I guess I'll leave the coffee here."

"Or you could leave the crutches here," Maura said. "You can lean on me. You're strong enough to walk on your own."

"But what if my pelvis decides it's not going to do what I want it to?"

"You'll have your arms around me. You know I'd support you."

"You already do," I said with a grin. "But I like that idea. If we don't wander too far, we can always come back for the crutches if I need them."

Maura locked the car, and I wrapped my left arm around her waist. She wrapped her right arm around mine, and we set off at an agonizingly slow pace through the Common, me leaning on her heavily, and Maura supporting me without complaint.

"I missed Boston while I was gone. Central Park is beautiful, but it wasn't the Common, and going there made me feel homesick," I remarked as we made our way in.

"I missed you while you were gone," Maura said quietly. "I would wonder, all the time, what you were doing at a particular moment."

"Probably missing you. I did that every waking moment, of every day. And then I'd fall asleep at night and dream of you."

"Did you ever go out, do things with the people you worked with? What about your friends?" Maura asked.

"I purposely did not cultivate any friendships while I was in New York. And I went out with my coworkers exactly once, on the date of your wedding, so I could get ridiculously drunk. When I wouldn't let one of the detectives in my unit into my pants, I never got asked back out again. That was completely fine with me. I was content to sit home and get drunk on other important dates, like the date you met William and your birthday. In the beginning I tried to explore the city a little on my own, just to distract myself, but I kept looking for Boston and getting upset when I realized nothing was going to be like home there."

"Jane, that's horrible," Maura said sadly.

"Yes, it was," I admitted softly.

"While you were gone, I tried to distract myself too. I had been looking at design books and magazines, planning the baby's room. And I became such a regular at yoga that they offered me a part time job teaching a class on Saturdays, but I turned them down. In the beginning I tried to meditate, because I thought it would calm me and teach me to control my thoughts about you and about William, but in the end I could never clear my mind, because all my thoughts always came right back to you."

"What did you do on the date of your wedding?" I asked suddenly.

"Your mother came over first thing in the morning and took me out for a spa day. Half way through I was so upset that we had to leave. The people at the spa thought I lost my mind. I spent the rest of the day in bed, crying."

"I'm sorry Maura." I really was sorry. Maura didn't deserve such unhappiness.

"I'm not sorry I cried. I needed to cry. I bottle up so much emotion sometimes. It felt good to let go of some of the sorrow. If only I'd known how much more sorrow awaited me though. I wasn't prepared for more heartache."

"You must have been so scared when you miscarried," I whispered.

"I wasn't scared. I was heartbroken. I knew exactly what was happening. I'd woken up that morning sicker than I'd been in weeks, and I had been spotting for days before that. I called in sick to work and stayed in bed, trying to relax. Eventually the cramping got so bad that I headed to the bathroom, and I miscarried in there. It was like my emotions had shut off and I looked at it clinically, like I had been trained to. It wasn't until your mother came home early, worried because I'd called in sick, that I really got upset."

"You were home _alone_ when it happened?" I asked, completely shocked.

"There was no one to stay with me, Jane. William was gone, and the only contact I had with him was through my attorney speaking to his attorney, and all we spoke about was custody of the baby once it was born. You were in New York. I love Korsak and Frost but I'd never call them for something like that. Your mother was at work. Frankie and Tommy were at work too." Maura said this all matter-of-factly, as if it hadn't been her that it happened to.

"I just wish you hadn't been alone when it happened," I said, feeling scared for her. I would have been scared in that situation. I couldn't understand how she handled it alone.

"Me too," Maura sighed.

I squeezed Maura's waist and pressed a kiss to her hair. "What happened after Ma showed up?"

"I don't remember very much. I was very out of it. I remember that she got very upset. She saw all the blood and panicked. She helped me to clean up a little, then she drove me over to Mass Gen. I spent a few days there, after my D and C recovering, and then I came home. Aside from your family, Frost and Korsak, I hadn't told many people I was pregnant. I'm sure they knew, since my morning sickness had forced me to alter my hours at work, but I was waiting for the first trimester to be over to officially announce it. It wasn't until I was home again that it hit me, exactly what I'd lost. All of a sudden all of the emotion I'd been bottling up just exploded out of me. Physically I'd been cleared to go back to work, so I went, and for a couple of weeks I tried, but I couldn't function and wound up taking time off to clear my head."

"I can only imagine how bad it was for you, if you couldn't function at work. Work is your comfort zone. It's where you lose yourself when you need to do that."

"After you left, work was just a reminder of you being gone," Maura said flatly.

"I'm sorry," I said for what felt like the millionth time. Would I ever be able to say it enough?

"Your mother was terrific. She wouldn't leave me alone. She went out of her way to make sure I was distracted in any way possible. She listened to me and offered advice. She had miscarried once, between Frankie and Tommy. Did you know that?"

"I do remember it, vaguely. I remember my father rushing my mother to the hospital and Nonna coming to stay with us for a few days. When Ma came home she told Frankie and I that she was going to have a baby but God decided to take the baby to heaven instead. We were just little kids. Frankie wasn't even three years old, and I wasn't quite six yet. We had no idea what any of that meant."

"She had a lot of advice to offer and she knew what I was going through. Your mother is wonderful, Jane," Maura said, the gratitude evident in her voice.

"She is, but don't ever tell her I said that," I responded with a grin.

"Maybe you should tell her, because sometimes I think she wonders what you think of her. She was so upset to learn that you were coming back to Boston to that deposition but you hadn't let her know. She hadn't seen you in half a year and you were going to not see her when you came back. It was irrational, but at first she was more upset about that than she was about your injuries. I think she could comprehend your actions, but she couldn't comprehend how gravely injured you were."

"I didn't tell anyone I was coming because I didn't think anyone would want to see me," I answered morosely. "Frankie wasn't speaking to me. Ma only called to check and see if I was still alive. She was furious with me for walking out on you before your wedding, but even that couldn't keep her overprotectiveness from making her check in. Tommy never called but he'd send pictures of TJ every couple of weeks. I couldn't stand the idea of coming back and seeing you and William as a married couple. I didn't want to hear about how happy the two of you were together, because it probably would have killed me."

I looked over to Maura and saw the hurt written all over her face. "I'm sorry. I had no idea so much had gone on while I was gone. My mother, the woman who can't keep a secret, had managed to keep all of what had happened to you from me because she was so angry with me."

"I think in your shoes I could understand how you felt. I would have been so happy to see you though. I never realized your mother didn't say anything. It's so unlike her."

"She was really angry with me for walking out the way I did. She has always considered you family, and hurting family is one of the worst things that a Rizzoli could do. I think she was afraid I'd find some new way to hurt you after all you'd been through. Truthfully, I don't know how I would have reacted to the news back then. I don't know what I would have said or done. Emotionally I was already a wreck, and I'd probably have lashed out instead of doing the right thing."

"I don't think I would have been able to get through that," Maura said. "In your shoes, I mean."

"I think we're on the right path now, though."

"I think so too. I think if we keep this up, we'll have a foundation stronger than we ever had before."

"Dr. Gilfried will be so proud."

Maura laughed. "Come on, let's go back to the car. It's cold, you're shivering, and we need to go find an outfit for you for tomorrow since I gave you your party clothes to wear today."

"Maura!"

"You look hot, by the way," Maura said with a smirk, doing her best impression of Giovanni.

"Ew, really, don't even go there. I do not, and you sound just like Giovanni, which is gross." I actually shuddered at the idea of Giovanni, but mostly the idea of Giovanni trying to lick Maura's face. My stomach clenched in revulsion.

"Jane, you do look really good. That outfit and that coat look terrific on you. And I've always thought you were beautiful. I think you're probably your most beautiful when you're open and honest with me, like you just were."

I shook my head in disbelief, but smiled at her. "You're the kindest person in the world, Maura, and you're a saint for putting up with me. Thank you. Let's go get this shopping over with. You know I hate to clothes shop."

"I love it, and we're going to have so much fun!" Maura clapped her hands together.

"That's what I'm afraid of," I said, with a laugh. We made our way back to Maura's car and headed to the mall to do some shopping.

By the time we were finished, I had 3 new outfits, a new pair of sneakers, and some underwear I was almost embarrassed to own. Maura really liked the underwear though, so how could I tell her no?

We headed back to Maura's house where Maura made us salads and fresh fruit for lunch while I took a hot bath to calm my muscles. I'd really worked them hard that morning, but I'd gone hours without using my crutches and it was worth it. I didn't even complain about the fresh fruit, either, even though I had planned to at breakfast. I was having too much fun with Maura to say anything.

After lunch we spent the afternoon cutting up vegetables to make stir-fry for dinner. We laughed and joked as we chopped up the ingredients, and I took comfort in the happy domesticity of the activity. I was looking forward to coming home to this on a more permanent basis.

The rest of Saturday flew by, and I found myself wishing it would slow down more than once. As we sat down to dinner later that evening, I said as much to Maura.

"Do I really have to go back to stay at the rehab center? Can't I stay here and do outpatient therapy?"

"Oh Jane. I don't want you to go back either. But you're not ready for outpatient therapy yet. Soon though. I can see you improving every day."

"It's just now that I've been home, I don't want to leave," I said sadly.

Maura positively beamed at me, which surprised me considering how sad I was. "Are you less apprehensive about coming to live here with me?"

"Absolutely!" I affirmed.

"It's going to be upsetting to drive you back to the rehab tomorrow. Especially after sleeping with you last night. Tomorrow night is going to be rather lonely."

"Then don't make me go."

"Jane," Maura pouted. "You know you have to go. You still need daily therapy. We'll just have to enjoy tonight and tomorrow too."

"I know," I sighed. "And I'm going to work my ass off in therapy, so I can come home right away."

"Before you know it, you'll be getting ready for your requalifications for duty," Maura said.

"I haven't even been offered a job, Maura. There's a chance that I might have to look at other cities. Just because Frankie told Cavanaugh to hold a spot for me in homicide doesn't mean that spot will be there when I'm ready to take it."

"It will be. I've already spoken to Cavanaugh, and he's definitely holding a spot open for you," Maura said with a shrug.

"_Maura__!"_

"Well I couldn't have you get better and then just leave again, could I?" Maura asked worriedly, panic evident in her eyes at the mere idea.

"That's- that's sneaky and underhanded and- and- AND JUST LIKE SOMETHING MY MOTHER WOULD DO!" I bellowed.

"I'm sorry, are you angry?" Maura looked terrified that I was really mad.

"No, I'm just shocked. That seems so unlike you. You've spent way too much time with my mother."

"Well, when you come home, your bad habits can rub off on me instead of hers."

"Mmm, you'd like me to rub you off," I said, grinning as I leaned in to kiss her. "Wouldn't you, now."

"Jane," Maura giggled against my lips before kissing me again. "Finish your dinner."

"Somebody's changing the subject!" I sing-songed.

"Well you know I can't lie. So I can't tell you I don't want you to do it. But now is not the time. And I don't think we'll be doing that again until you're ready for me to reciprocate."

"We can do that again whenever you want, Maura. I told you last night I'm not keeping score." I flashed her a smile and batted my eyelashes.

"Still, I'd rather it be a mutual thing, and not something that's so one-sided."

"You don't think I enjoyed doing that to you last night?"

"Not as much as you would have if you'd let me reciprocate," Maura pointed out gently.

Maura raised a hand as I started to object.

"I understand the reasons why you didn't want me to touch you, and I agreed to wait until you were ready. I'm just making a point."

"It bothers you though, doesn't it?" I asked.

"I wouldn't use the word bother. Worries me, perhaps. I'd really like to help you restore your confidence. I'm more concerned about that than I am over how many orgasms we have in a single weekend."

"Thank you for being concerned, but there's nothing to be concerned about," I said quietly. I didn't see this as a problem. I just needed to be ready, and I wasn't at the moment.

"Yes, there is. Ever since this accident you've been almost passive, Jane. The Jane Rizzoli I know and love has never been passive. She is bold, confident and powerful. And before you say that this accident changed you, I know that the person I'm talking about is still there. She was there the day Wilma died at the rehab and you took charge of the situation. She was there yesterday, when you told your mother about us and stood up to her."

"I just don't feel bold or confident. I can't really explain it. I don't like how I look. I don't feel like myself," I argued defensively.

"Well, let's give it some time, and see if you and I can't get that confidence back for you. And I'm sure Dr. Gilfried will work on this with you too."

"Great," I groaned. "When I start outpatient therapy, I don't have to see her anymore, do I?"

"Your outpatient therapy will likely consist of all the same therapies you're getting now, just shorter in duration," Maura explained.

"So that means I still have to see her," I grumbled.

"I thought you liked her?" Maura scowled.

"She's nice, I just hate all the prying she does. She doesn't give up, and it gets on my nerves." I knew I sounded like I was whining, but it was true. I hated all the prying.

"She doesn't take no for an answer, you mean."

"Correct."

"You used to be the same way," Maura remarked. "Maybe she's doing that with you so she can teach you by example."

I sighed and got up, rinsing my plate and putting it in the dishwasher. "Are you done with that?" I asked, pointing to Maura's plate and ignoring her last comment.

"Yes, thank you," she said, handing me the dish.

I rinsed Maura's plate and put it in the dishwasher too.

"I'm going to get ready for bed," I said quietly.

"Jane?"

"Yeah?" I almost snapped. I was tired of hearing about how I'd be back to my old self someday. It didn't feel like that was possible.

"Don't be mad, Jane. Not all of your healing is physical in nature, and it all takes time."

Maura was so sweet when she said that, that it made me feel guilty for how mad I was getting. She wasn't trying to piss me off. It was my own fault, for letting the conversation get to me the way it had.

"Thanks," I answered guiltily as I started making my way to the stairs.

"Wait, I'll help you," Maura said, jumping from her seat to help me up the stairs.

"I've got it." I did have it, but I could hear Maura two steps behind me the entire way up. I got up to her bedroom and pulled out my pajamas.

"I'm going to take a bath, do you want to join me?" Maura asked.

"Nah, that's okay," I waved her away as I started putting my pajamas on.

"Come on, Jane. Don't be so angry."

"I'm not angry." I wasn't. I was frustrated, tired, achy, and upset that I had caused Maura concern. But I wasn't angry. Not anymore, at least.

"Okay," Maura said, unconvinced. "If you change your mind, you know where to find me."

I could hear Maura puttering around in the bathroom while I changed into my pajamas. I considered joining her for about thirty seconds before I realized that joining her would mean exposing myself to her again, both physically and emotionally, and I was too tired for that. Instead I curled up on the bed, on top of the covers, and waited for Maura to come out of the bathroom so we could go to sleep.

At one point I heard the bathroom door open, but Maura didn't come out and didn't say anything, so I didn't bother to look up and see what she was doing. I heard the door close a few seconds later, and then after that I heard the shower running. I guess Maura had been waiting to see if I'd change my mind and join her in the bath. I felt bad that she'd waited for me, but I had told her no.

I'd fallen asleep before Maura came back out of the bathroom, but woke up as she was trying to maneuver the covers out from under me and cover me up.

"Oh hey, sorry," I said when I woke up. "Let me get up."

I sat up and we pulled the covers down. I curled back up under them, and waited for Maura to join me.

"I just need to moisturize. All that walking around we did at the Common today dried out my skin."

"Okay," I said with a yawn. I could barely keep my eyes open. Being home was definitely more exhausting than being at the rehab, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and started rubbing lotion on her skin. She was still wrapped in a towel as I started to doze off.

"Maur?"

"Yes, beautiful girl?"

I smiled at the term of endearment. I know Maura could hear it in my voice even if she wasn't facing me to see it. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Today. Everything. Waiting for me to be ready," I said sleepily.

"I love you, Jane. That's all part of loving you, and you never have to thank me for that," she reassured me.

"Thank you anyway. And I love you, too."

I don't remember her getting up and getting dressed, or climbing back into the bed, but when I woke up the next morning, she was wrapped up tightly in my arms.


	32. Chapter 32

**A/N:** I'm not sure if someone has been recommending this story somehow, but the number of follows and favorites for it have jumped considerably over the last several days, to the point where it's beginning to compare with when the first few chapters of the story were published. If anybody out there is recommending this story, thank you so very much! I also want to thank the people who follow, favorite and leave reviews. I always look forward to reading your thoughts on the story. Those of you reading and not reviewing, I know you're out there too. I see the page views and know that you're invested in this story, and that means a lot to me. Thank you to everyone that's still here and reading this.

And last, but not least, thank you to CharlietheCAG for her beta skills. I've been working her really hard lately, and she's always been up to the task. Thank you, Charlie!

* * *

I woke up late the following morning to hazel eyes watching me intently. We were facing each other, forehead to forehead, arms wrapped around each other's torsos, and legs tangled together. I lifted one hand from Maura's torso and cupped her cheek before leaning in to kiss her.

"Good morning," I mumbled against her lips.

I wanted to wake up like that every morning. I never wanted to let go of Maura. I never wanted to lose that feeling of calm. That complete, and utter contentment that I felt in that moment. I never wanted to get out of that bed. I never wanted to go back to rehab.

Maura gave a small sigh and kissed me back tenderly, pulling me closer to her. "Good morning."

"Been awake long?" I asked between kisses that were starting to gradually heat up.

"Long enough to know that I'm going to miss waking up like this together until you come home again," she murmured.

"I'm going to miss this too."

I kissed her again, and slipped my hand from her cheek to the hem of her shirt. "I think we need to make this morning special. It's the last one we're going to share like this for a while." I kissed down Maura's neck and started lifting her shirt to take it off, but she stopped me.

"No," she said firmly.

"No?" I asked, stopping everything I was doing and looking at her completely puzzled.

"Are you ready for me to make love to you?" she asked tenderly.

I shook my head no and frowned.

"Okay then," Maura said, pushing her shirt back down, and kissing me lightly. "What would you like for breakfast?"

"You."

"Jane," Maura's tone was still light, but carried with it a warning.

"Really, Maura, you don't want me to… you know?"

"No. Not today. Not again until you're ready. I don't want to do anything until you're ready." She squeezed my hand to let me know she wasn't being vindictive. She was simply being fair.

"But-"

"But what, Jane?" Maura asked lightly. She hadn't let go of my hand, and I knew that deep down what she was doing was for the best for me, but it still hurt in a way. Just because I wasn't ready didn't mean I couldn't please her. I _wanted_ to please her, over and over and over again. I wanted to carry the memory of making love to her back to rehab with me, to give me something to think about in anticipation of being ready for her whenever I next came home. I was crushed by her refusal but would definitely respect her wishes. That didn't keep me from whining about it though.

"But I'm going back to rehab tonight!" I cried. I did _not_ want to leave there.

"I know, Sweetheart. I know." She curled up against me, hugging me to her tightly. "I'm going to miss having you here so much."

"I just thought that we could make this special," I said forlornly.

"It is special, Jane. This entire weekend was wonderful, and we're going to have a wonderful day today, too. Everyone is going to be here, and we're going to celebrate Frankie's gold badge."

"Okay," I said, put off at Maura's refusal.

"You're angry again," Maura accused.

"No, I'm not. I'm not angry. Frustrated, perhaps, but that has more to do with myself than with you," I tried to reassure her.

"I think we had a great weekend, Jane. You've got nothing to be frustrated about. We talked about so much, and I really feel like we accomplished a lot too," Maura encouraged.

"I'm sorry, Maura. I'm sorry that my moods are so weird and that I'm not acting like myself. I think coming home has really showed me just how far I still have to go in my recovery. I did have a great time with you this weekend though, and I'm glad we talked about as much as we did."

"And we told your mother about us, which is also a really big thing. And today we'll tell your brothers, Frost and Korsak too."

"Yes, we will."

I still had mixed feelings about that. Although Ma seemed to have gotten over her shock about Maura and I, her initial reaction to our announcement had left me wary of everyone else's reactions.

"I don't like to guess, but I'm willing to hypothesize that Vince and Barry have money riding on us," Maura informed me.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because they've been asking all sorts of questions since they saw you at the rehab on the day Wilma died."

"Have they been now?" I narrowed my eyes. I'd seen the way Frost and Korsak had watched Maura and I interact, but I wasn't sure I liked the idea of them betting money on us getting together. It seemed a bit odd, bordering almost on rude.

"I think your brothers might be in on it too. Well, Frankie might be in on it. I haven't seen Tommy at all in about two weeks."

"I'll kick their asses if they're betting on us." I decided I definitely didn't like it.

"Jane, as happy as I would be to see you acting like your old self, I'd rather you didn't strain yourself before you go back to the rehab center tonight. Besides, it's endearing, isn't it? They're interested in us."

"Interested? More like nosy," I scoffed.

"It's all a matter of semantics. Look at it this way, if they are actually betting on us getting together, at least we know they'll be supportive of it."

"That's true," I acknowledged begrudgingly.

Maura sat up and got out of bed. "Let's go have breakfast. Your mother will be over soon to start cooking, and I'd like to do some cleaning before everyone gets here later."

"Okay. I'll help."

"Now I know you're not yourself. Did you just volunteer to help clean?" Maura laughed.

I swatted Maura's backside as I walked behind her. "Did you honestly think I was going to come live here and not help with the daily chores?"

"Yes," Maura said bluntly.

"Maura!"

"What? You know I can't lie, Jane."

"Well you can keep things like that to yourself!" I laughed, and we started making our way downstairs.

Maura and I made pancakes and bacon together, and I called my mother over to come eat with us.

"I didn't see you all weekend." I faux-pouted when she came in.

"I wanted to give you and Maura a chance to settle in," Ma replied with a shrug of her shoulders. "How's it going?"

Maura looked over to me and I smiled at her. "Wonderful."

"Wonderfully," Maura corrected.

"See? Completely normal," I joked.

Maura and I knew that wasn't entirely true, but we were as close to normal as we could be, and the weekend had been a good one overall.

"Hey, did I get a package here this week? I ordered a gift for Frankie and they were supposed to send it express."

"Yes, it's over by the front door. I meant to ask you what that was." Maura replied as she got up to go get it.

"It's a leather badge holder. I promised him I'd get him one when he became a detective. I ordered it online from the tablet computer you gave me. It's very handy, having that. Thank you."

"You're very welcome, Jane. And that's sweet of you to get him such a meaningful gift. I have some wrapping paper if you'd like to wrap it up," Maura offered.

"That would be great, thanks."

Maura came back with the package, some scissors, tape and some generic wrapping paper. She and Ma cleaned up breakfast while I wrapped up Frankie's gift.

"You should go up and bathe and get dressed while your mother and I get started on the cleaning and cooking. By the time you're done upstairs, I'll be ready to shower and dress and then you can help your mother."

"I can help a little bit first too, if you want," I offered.

"It's okay. We have everything under control," Maura said quickly.

I got the distinct feeling I was being dismissed. "I know I'm a little slower moving than the two of you, but I can still help out and then bathe in time for everyone to get here later," I pointed out. "It's still early yet."

"Jane, please go get started. Maura and I have a schedule set up, and you're delaying us!" Ma chastised.

"A schedule for what, exactly? I mean, aren't we just having Sunday dinner with a little thing for Frankie? How much preparation do we need to do here exactly, for Korsak and Frost?"

"JANE, GO UP AND GET IN THE DAMN SHOWER ALREADY!" Ma yelled.

I flinched. "Ma! Language! What's going on here? What is it?" My hackles were definitely raised. I did not like where this was going.

"Nothing. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so excited about our first Sunday dinner in almost a year that I'm all nervous. I'm sorry, Janie." Ma rushed out her apology, and Maura shifted uncomfortably. Ma continued trying to shoo me out of the kitchen.

I sighed. "Fine." I got up and headed toward the stairs. "Maura, could I see you upstairs, please?"

"Um, uh, I have to help your mother. Is there something you need?" she asked.

I looked over at Maura and she was bright red. Ma kept looking at her watch.

"Yeah, Maura. I need to talk to you, and I need to talk to you upstairs. And I could use your help getting up the stairs," I swung my arm toward the stairs and pointed to them.

"Oh, right. Okay," Maura said, jumping up to follow me.

Maura helped me up the stairs and into her bedroom, but not before throwing an apologetic glance at my mother over her shoulder.

"What's happening, Maura?" I asked when we got upstairs.

"Your mother and I are just getting ready for Sunday dinner, Jane."

"And?" I demanded.

Maura's eyes widened. She knew I had her cornered. "And a little get together."

"For Frankie?"

"Yes…"

"And?" I demanded again. I'd heard her hesitate at the end of her response. This was Maura's way of omitting necessary information but not quite lying. I had to question her the same way I would question a suspect who thought he could survive an interrogation with me by simply using one word answers.

"And what, Jane?" Maura was definitely getting nervous. It was starting to show.

"I know something is going on, Maura. And I know you can't lie. What is it?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing else is going on? You and Ma don't have something up your sleeves?"

"N-n-no, Jane. I don't have anything up my sleeves." Maura was now so nervous, it was making_m_e sick. I bet she even hoped I wouldn't notice that she said _she_ didn't have anything up her sleeve. She completely left out my mother. Something was _definitely_ going on.

"I'd really hate for you to have to sit there all night tonight with a case of hives, Maura."

"Okay, fine! Fine! She's having a party for Frankie… and for you," Maura blurted.

"For me? WHY? Why would she be having a party for me? HAS SHE SEEN ME?" I growled.

"Jane, please, it's just a small gathering of people that care about you. That's all. Please, Jane she'll be so angry with me if she knows that I told you. She is so excited about surprising you, and that she was able to pull this off on such short notice. Please," Maura begged, "She's so happy about this. Do it for her, please."

"Maura, how could you let her do this? How could you let her invite people here to see me, like this? I have almost no hair! I'm still having a hard time walking!" I covered my face with my hands, wishing I could just make myself disappear.

"Most of the people that are coming tonight have already seen you, Jane." Maura put her hand on my arm, but it did little to ease the panic I was starting to feel.

"And that's supposed to comfort me? I don't even want the people who have seen me to see me like this!"

"Jane, I'm sorry. I did try to dissuade her." Maura looked as upset as I felt.

"But?" I asked sarcastically.

"But you know how she gets once she gets an idea into her head," Maura said, resignation evident in her voice.

I rolled my shoulders and sighed. "I can't believe this is how we're spending my last afternoon home," I said bitterly.

"Jane, I'm sure you'll enjoy it once the party starts. I'm sure that eating your mother's cooking and seeing the people that love you will really make all this worry seem frivolous."

"Oh sure, I'm sure I'll love having everyone stare at me. It'll be twice as exciting when we come out to everyone," I said sarcastically. And had she really just called my worry _frivolous_?

Maura tried for a different tack. "Don't forget, they'll be staring at Frankie also. It's his party too."

"You're not helping, Maura!"

"MAURA, I NEED YOU!" Ma bellowed from downstairs.

"Jane, I'm sorry. Are you angry with me? I'm sorry. I was only trying to help your mother do a nice thing for you."

I grunted. I was incredibly pissed off.

Maura leaned in and kissed me sweetly, trying to soften the shock of the party and diffuse my anger. She wrapped her arms around me and held me to her tightly as she asked, "Are you mad?"

"How can I be mad at you when you kiss me like that?" I said, to try and make her feel better. I really didn't want to argue with her before going back to rehab. I didn't want to argue with her at all, but why hadn't she tried harder to put a stop to this? Everyone who knew me knew I hated surprises.

She looked at me, and I could tell that she didn't quite believe me. "Thank you," she said as she turned around to leave.

"I'll just be… mad at you later," I muttered, but Maura heard me. Her pout was so endearing.

"MAURA!" Ma yelled again.

"Jane, I have to go. I'm sorry. For all of this." She kissed me once more, and then left me in the bedroom.

I sat down on the bed with a sigh, wishing I had somewhere I could run away to. I had no idea that in a few hours, I'd really be wishing I could disappear.

* * *

**A/N:** Uh oh. The calm before the storm! The next couple of chapters are going to be a bit on the rocky side. Are you ready for them? I'm not even sure if I am! ;)


	33. Chapter 33

**A/N:** I've never suffered a serious injury, thankfully. What that means is that in writing this story I've had to do a bit of research. I've done my best to try and capture the emotion that comes along with an injury like Jane's with a reasonable amount of sensitivity, and as much realism as I could just from my imagination.

Everything I've read has told me that after a significant injury, one of the things people don't often realize is that their interpersonal relationships have a potential to change. The injured person is dealing with their injuries and the psychological impact the injury has on them, and the people closest to them are often dealing with those changes too. The injured person is often left wondering what other people's perceptions of them are, and whether those perceptions have changed since their injury. The next couple of chapters are going to explore that facet, and they're going to be difficult for Jane to get through. I tried to explore these various interpersonal relationships with as much dignity and sensitivity as I possibly could. In Jane's case, in this story at least, this issue compounded by the fact that she has a helicopter mother who means well, but rarely sees things from her daughter's perspective.

All that being said, I hope that despite the significant amount of angst in this chapter (and the next few), that you'll enjoy it, and if you do have criticisms, that you'll be kind and constructive with them.

And now, on to the chapter...

* * *

After I sat on the edge of the bed, bemoaning the fact that my mother was throwing me a surprise party while I still looked and felt like death warmed over, for at least a half an hour, I decided that I was pretty much relegated to my fate. I also decided that I needed to look my best, so I took a long, hot shower and tried to style the inch and a half of hair on my head. I was frustrated because I couldn't do much with it, but at least the scars on my scalp were covered. I dressed in the outfit Maura had picked out for me the day before, and used some of Maura's lip gloss, mascara, and eyeliner to give me a little bit of color. I was still horribly pale, but Maura's foundation and blush weren't the right shades for my skintone, so I left them in her makeup bag on the bathroom counter.

When I came out of Maura's bathroom, she was waiting for me in the bedroom. Maura was already dressed. She looked gorgeous, which just made me feel even worse about myself. Maura didn't have to put any effort into looking glamorous. She just exuded glamor. Meanwhile I'd spent the last two hours trying to do something, anything, with myself to make myself look presentable, and I still looked horrible.

"How-"

"I showered in the guest bathroom. I put my makeup and clothes in there last night when you fell asleep," Maura said gently. She could see the worry on my face.

"Oh."

"Did you see the foundation and blush I left for you?" Maura asked, studying me closely.

"I thought that was yours. And your shades don't really match my shades that well," I shrugged.

"No, come in here, let me give you a hand."

Maura brought me back into the bathroom, draped a clean towel over the front of my clothes and redid both my hair and makeup for me. She stepped back to admire her handiwork and beamed at me.

"You look gorgeous," she said proudly.

"There's no way-"

She cut me off again. "Get up, look in the mirror. That outfit plus that makeup? You're stunning. And I know you hate having your hair short like this but the way it looks right now makes you look like a runway model."

I got up and peered in the mirror. The woman staring back at me wasn't me… but she was gorgeous.

"How did you do that?" I asked, incredulous.

"Do what?" Maura responded, baffled.

"Make me look human again?" I snarked.

"You're always human, Jane. No amount of science can change that."

"That's not what I meant." I turned and gave her a long look.

"I know. But you do look stunning. So much so that all I want to do is kiss you, but I can't because I'll ruin your makeup."

"We could just stay up here and make out," I offered. I was desperate to not have to go down there and wait for the partygoers and looky loos to arrive.

"You know we can't do that, Jane," Maura said softly. "I'm sorry. Now, take a deep breath, and walk with me. Your guests await you."

"Guests? They're here already?" How could they be there already? It was just past noon! It felt like with every passing minute something else happened to knock me off balance. How could the guests be there already?

"Yes. And your mother is getting VERY impatient trying to keep them all quiet down there," Maura said cautiously.

"Oh my god, Maura. How many? How many guests?" I started sweating, thinking of having to make an entrance with my crutches and my lurch and scarred skin and patchy hair.

"Just a few," Maura said, eyes wide with honesty.

"I can't do this." I actually thought I was going to hyperventilate.

"Yes, you can, Jane." Maura squeezed my arm and gave me her best look of reassurance, but it wasn't helping. I did _not_ want to go down there, and she knew it. She was beginning to look just as anxious as I was. "Please Jane, nothing but good things are waiting for you. And if you don't go down there, you can't help Frankie celebrate his gold badge."

"I can't. I can't do this. I don't want people to see me this way. Please, Maura, don't make me do this. I can't do this." I was begging, and I wasn't even ashamed of it.

"Jane, this will be really good for you. It will be good for you to be around people and socialize. You have to do this. Do it for yourself. Do it for me." Maura sounded like she was starting to beg too.

"I can't, Maura."

"Jane, do it for your mother. She's so excited about this. She's so happy that you're alive and that you're going to be okay. She just wants to celebrate you. She wants to celebrate the fact that months of worry and despair and fear are over, and you're back home again. Please Jane. Do it for her."

I looked at Maura and thought about how much it would disappoint my mother if she even knew I knew about the party, let alone backed out of it. I still had absolutely no desire to go down there, but the consequences of not going would have been just as awful as going, I figured. "Will you stay with me? The entire time?" I asked hesitantly.

"Yes, if that's what you want," Maura said resolutely.

I sighed, once again resigned to my fate. "I should leave the crutches up here. This way people won't see me using them." I figured the less people saw of my disabilities, the easier I'd make it through this party.

"If that's what you want, you can do that." Maura looked relieved that I was acquiescing.

Maura guided me to the top of the stairs and I could faintly hear people whispering. "Maura, I changed my mind. I can't do this. Don't make me do this. Please." I tried to turn around and go back to the bedroom, but Maura held me gently in place.

"Jane, please do this for your mother and for Frankie. You don't have to stay the entire time. I can help you back upstairs whenever you want. It's only just after noon now. By four o'clock the party will already be winding down, and we'll have the rest of the evening together before we leave for the rehab at nine."

"What if they think I'm weak?" I was on the verge of tears.

"Well if you keep hiding from them, they're definitely going to think that," Maura pointed out rather sternly.

"I'm not getting out of this, am I?"

"No," she shook her head and gave me a small smile.

"Please, Maura."

"Jane, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Do you remember the last time we did things the hard way?"

"Yes," I groaned, though I did remember enjoying her ripping my dirty sweatsuit off and stuffing me into my police uniform the night of the awards ceremony following the incident with Bobby Marino.

"I will not hesitate to throw you over my shoulder and carry you fireman style down into the party. How would you like that for an entrance?" Maura smiled at me to show me she was joking, but somehow I could still see the threat behind the joke. She probably would try it, if I made her.

"You couldn't," I dared her.

"You want to see me try?" she called my bluff.

"No."

"Then start walking, and act surprised!" Maura whispered.

We started down the steps and stopped about halfway down, when my pelvis started to wobble. Maura narrowed her eyes at me.

"Seriously, Maura, I'm not doing this on purpose."

"Okay." She put her arm tighter around my waist and walked me down to the last step. "I love you," she whispered quickly before we turned the corner, into the living room, where all the guests were, standing and waiting.

"SURPRISE!" they yelled.

"Oh my god." My free hand flew to my chest and my knees almost went out from under me. Maura gripped me harder, and pulled me closer to her. A few people? It looked like they'd pulled random people in off the street just to fill up the room.

"Easy," she said quietly. "Easy. Go toward the couch." I made it over to the couch without managing to stumble, and Maura sat down next to me, holding my hand.

The living room was decorated with balloons and banners. On one wall there was a banner that said "Congratulations Frankie!" and on the other wall there was a banner that said "Welcome Home Jane!". There were party hats and chips and dip placed around the room. A quick glance around showed me that Ma had invited just about everyone Frankie and I knew.

Our family was there, Tommy, along with Lydia, TJ and Lydia's mother Rene. Frankie and Ma were there, of course too.

Korsak was there with Dana and Frost had arrived with Anna.

Sean Cavanaugh was there.

A rousing 'HEY VANILLA!' from the back of the room told me that Rondo was there as well.

I spotted Carla Talucci and her niece Gia. Gia was busy eyeing Frankie. Ma's cousin Teresa and her daughter Gianna were there as well. Gianna was busy giving Gia the stink eye. Those two had despised each other since birth, which was ironic considering how much they had in common.

Some of Frankie's classmates from the academy and a few detectives from the Vice unit were there also.

My Pop wasn't there, but considering that no one had heard from him in at least two years, I didn't expect him to be there. I wasn't even sure that he knew I'd been injured. I don't think he would care either way. I certainly didn't care if he knew.

I was completely overwhelmed. I never liked surprise parties, but this was worse than that. I felt every eye in the room on me, sizing me up. Calculating just how far down life had cut the indomitable Jane Rizzoli. I tried to smile, but all I could do was shake. Maura, to her credit, hadn't removed her arm from around me and was gently squeezing my hand.

"It's okay, Jane. You're all right," she was whispering over and over to me. Finally, she whispered, "Say something."

"Hey," I said flatly, and the room quieted down. "Wow. Um, what a surprise. Thanks for coming."

"There," Maura whispered against me again. "Just stay here, people will come to you to say hello."

And sure enough, people started coming up. First was Ma and Frankie.

"So, what a surprise, huh?" Ma asked, beaming.

"Ma, I wish you wouldn't have done this," I said quietly, wiping the proud smile right off her face. "The last thing I wanted was all of these people here, staring at me. I thought we were having dinner with my brothers, Korsak and Frost to celebrate Frankie's gold badge."

"I just thought-" Ma started, defensive and already playing the wounded puppy.

"No, you _didn't _think," I hissed quietly. "You didn't think about what it would be like in my shoes. To have all these people staring at me. _You didn't think, Ma!_"

"I was just trying to do something nice for you, Janie." The hurt was written all over Ma's face, and I felt guilty for speaking to her that way.

"How many times did I have to say that I didn't want people to see me like this? And what about Frankie? Isn't anyone here to celebrate him?" I gestured to Frankie, who had been really quiet throughout the entire exchange.

"It's fine, Janie. I'm enjoying this. I mean, not enjoying seeing you upset, but I'm glad all these people came here to see you. They were all worried about you. You know, having this party is as much a thing for them as it is for you or me. Everybody here was scared for you, Janie. So now they get to see that you're all right. That you're still my kickass older sister. It puts their minds at ease."

"They teach you how to bullshit at the Police Academy, little brother?" I growled.

"Jane please," Maura said quietly. "A lot of people went out of their way to do this for you and to get here to see you."

"Fine. Thank you, Ma, for humiliating me in front of everyone I know. And thank you, Maura and Frankie, for keeping this a secret from me instead of putting a stop to it. Thank you to all of you."

"Jane, these people care about you. They wouldn't be here if they didn't. They're all really relieved to see how well you're doing," Ma whimpered, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Ma, I know you had good intentions with this, but you know I hate surprise parties. I hate myself right now too. So the combination of my life plus this surprise party is not a good thing." I smacked my hands down onto my thighs and started pushing myself to get up. "I want to go back upstairs."

"You can't, Jane. You need to stay here and at least greet your guests," Ma said.

I shot my mother a dirty look. She clearly had no sympathy for me and hadn't heard a word I'd just said. "You know what? I think I'd like to go back to the rehab now. Right now."

"Jane, please, you can't. Don't do this," Frankie begged, putting a hand on my shoulder so I'd stay seated. "Please stay awhile and try to have some fun. It's a party, it's supposed to be fun."

"Hey Jane, Maura, Angela," Korsak greeted us as he came over, oblivious to what was going on. "Congrats, Frankie. We were all thrilled to hear you got your gold badge."

"Uh, thanks Korsak. It was a real honor," Frankie looked from Korask to Maura and just shrugged.

"Jane, you look terrific!" Korsak said as he leaned down to kiss my cheek. "Can you believe we were able to track down Rondo and get him here? We can thank Frost for that. Hadn't seen much of Rondo since you left, but Frost tracked him down."

"I'll be sure to thank him later," I said through gritted teeth.

"I need to go put the lasagne in the oven," Ma said, getting up suddenly. "Maura, could you help me?"

Maura went to stand up, and I grabbed her and pulled her back down onto the couch with me. "No way. She stays right here. Go make your own lasagne. Or have Carla Talucci help you. Maura's not leaving my side,_ at all_." I looked at Maura pointedly, silently reminding her of her promise from upstairs to stay with me.

"Okay, Jane," Maura said warily. "Do you mind, Angela?"

"No, it's fine." Ma gave me a dirty look and walked away. Korsak gave me a funny look.

"Frankie, why don't you go get Tommy and Frost and bring them both over here? Maura and I have something we need to talk to you all about."

"Everything okay, Janie?" Korsak asked.

"Peachy keen, Korsak."

Since I planned to make my escape from that party as fast as I could, there was no point in putting off any longer.

"Jane, we don't have to do this today," Maura warned. "Perhaps in your state of mind it's not the best idea," she added.

"Why not, Maura? I mean, it's bad enough that you decided to parade me around and show everyone just how awful I look. Why not make our announcement today too?" I was snarling at her. I was actually snarling at the woman I loved. The entire situation was so far out of control, it was making me feel physically ill.

"Jane, come on. You're taking this the wrong way," Maura said, her voice shaky with the tears that were threatening to spill down her cheeks.

"No, you all thought of this the wrong way. It's like you don't even know me at all. I don't even want _you_ to see me like this, so you all thought it would be a good idea to invite everyone I know to come stare? Really, Maura? When Ma announced this is what she wanted to do, you just said 'Why not?' and went along with it? I thought you knew me better than that!"

Maura couldn't answer me. She was very choked up and trying her best not to cry in front of everyone. The people around us were starting to stare.

"Jane, what the hell is going on?" Korsak demanded.

"You mean aside from being embarrassed beyond belief?" I asked him back.

"It's just your family and friends here, Jane. What on earth do you have to be embarrassed about?"

"Korsak, you remember how we sat down and talked after you and I weren't partners anymore, and I told you that the reason I asked for us to be split up was because you'd seen me weak and vulnerable? Do you remember that?"

"Yeah, I do." Korsak looked uncomfortable at the memory. I knew he still had regrets about that day with Hoyt. He'd probably carry those regrets to his grave.

"Well do you honestly think I want all these people here to see me that way? Weak and vulnerable? I can't even walk without lurching. I look sickly and feel terrible. I don't want people to see me like this!" I spat out my words, and clenched my fists. I was so angry and so embarrassed that if the mouth to Hell had opened right there in front of me, I willingly would have dived in and let it swallow me.

"Do you remember what I told you that day, Jane? I said to you that no one can break Jane Rizzoli unless you let 'em. It's a choice. That still applies here, today. You can sit here and be all sensitive or you can get up and mingle and act like nothing's wrong. People aren't here to stare at you, Jane. They're here to celebrate the fact that you're still alive. They're all thrilled that you're going to be okay, and that you're still here to see them and be a part of their lives. So what's it going to be? Angry, vulnerable Jane, or badass, look-what-I-survived Jane? Whatever you pick though, you owe your mother and your girlfriend a giant apology."

"My what?" I asked, staring at him.

"Oh come on, Jane. We all know. We all knew the day that woman died at the rehab, and Maura couldn't stop checking on you. We all knew years ago that you two had a thing for each other. Quit being an asshole and look at what you're doing to Maura."

I looked over at Maura, who was discreetly using a party napkin to wipe at her eyes. As angry as I was, seeing Maura silently cry next to me broke my heart. Had I just thrown away everything Maura and I were working so hard to rebuild? I couldn't reconcile the fear I had of losing Maura to the anger and embarrassment I was feeling. There were so many conflicting emotions brewing in me that I didn't know what to do. I figured apologizing to Maura was the best bet.

"I'm sorry, Maura. I know you had only good intentions with this party. I just wasn't ready for all of this. I'm sorry for saying you didn't know me at all. You know me better than anyone else."

Maura just nodded. I could tell that she couldn't trust her voice, and that she was still having a hard time keeping her tears in check.

Frankie came back with Tommy and Frost. "What's up, Janie? Hey, did you make Maura cry?" Frankie grabbed the napkin from Maura's hand and tilted her chin up. "So help me, Janie. I don't care how hurt you were, if you make her cry again I will smack the shit outta you."

"Frankie, please," Maura said, finally finding her words. "Jane has apologized, and I'm just trying to calm down." She turned and looked at me. "I'm sorry, Jane. I should not have forced you to come down here after you said you didn't want to. I really thought it would be good for you. I just wanted to celebrate you along with everyone else."

I just shook my head in wonderment. I really couldn't understand how they could think this was a good idea. At all.

"Hey Janie," Tommy said, clearly uncomfortable and trying to change the subject. "TJ's here, if you wanna see him later."

"Yeah, I can't wait. I missed that little guy." It was the first good feeling I'd had since I'd come downstairs. I really couldn't wait to see TJ. Maybe he could be my distraction from all of this.

"So, uh, what's up?" Frost asked, looking around at all of us and feeling just as uncomfortable as everyone else near us.

I looked over at Maura.

"Maura and I had something to tell all of you, but based on my behavior just now, what we wanted to tell you may have been a bit premature. I'm sure at this very moment, Maura is having second thoughts."

"What? No, Jane. No. No second thoughts. Not one second thought at all," Maura said hastily. "I'm not going down that route ever again, and we need to tell them before you go back to rehab tonight because I'm tired of hiding it. There's no doubt in my mind about what I'm about to tell you," Maura said, looking at the crowd gathered in front of us. "Jane and I are in love. We're a couple now, even when Jane decides to be furious with me for things that were really beyond my control."

I gaped at Maura, and Frost, Korsak, Tommy and Frankie gaped at the two of us.

"Did you really just say that?" I asked, amazed more at the choice of words than the actual sentiment.

Before she could answer me though, my brothers were giving Maura and I kisses on the cheek and Frost and Korsak were clapping us both on the back.

"That's fifty dollars, from each of you," Frost pointed at the rest of them. "I think I was the one who called it that they'd get together before she was even out of rehab."

"Yeah, but they told us while she was home, that means I win," Tommy contested.

"No way, dude. You heard Maura, she's going back to rehab tonight. She's still in rehab," Frost argued.

The four of them turned away from Maura and I and continued arguing back and forth. It was like Maura and I weren't even there, and hadn't even just given them what was supposed to be shocking news.

Suddenly I felt Maura's lips against my ear. "See? I told you they were betting on us."

I jumped away from her so I could look at her. She had a sly grin on her face. "You- how did you- you went from upset to- to- smug? Are you smug right now?"

She kissed me on the cheek softly. "I'm sorry, Jane. I'm sorry I forced you to come down here like this. I also accept your apology, and I'm going to walk you into the kitchen so you can apologize to your mother and work things out with her."

I nodded at her, amazed, but somewhat irritated too. I felt bad for hurting Maura's feelings, but did she really not care about how I felt about being put on display like this? Why didn't anyone understand it? Why hadn't she said so that my mother could apologize to me?

"And so help me if you don't start greeting the rest of your guests and having a good time," Maura threatened.

"You sound just like my mother."

"Get up, Jane. We're going to the kitchen," Maura demanded, her eyes narrowed into slits. I could tell she was still upset, and angry. So was I, truthfully. I didn't want to fight with her, or hurt her feelings, but I also didn't want to be at that party, yet there I was.

"Okay. Okay," I said, standing on shaky legs. I took a few uncertain steps without Maura, afraid suddenly because I'd purposely left my crutches upstairs. What if I fell in front of all of those people? How could I have been so stupid to leave my crutches upstairs?

"Wait for me," Maura said, wrapping an arm around my waist.

"I didn't think you'd want to do that," I said.

"What? Help you to the kitchen?" Maura asked, confused.

"No, want to touch me."

"Jane, even when I am at my angriest, there will never be a time I don't want to touch you. I may be mad at you, but I still love you. I'm always going to love you, even when you're an obstinate, prickly, cranky girlfriend."

"Wow. Um, really?" I asked. "You drag me to a party I don't want to go to and embarass me in front of everyone I know, and I'm the one who is obstinate and cranky?"

Maura sighed and stopped walking, but didn't let go of me. "I'd like to tell you that you're not thinking of this rationally. Most people would be thankful that someone took the time to try and do something nice for them. I'd also like to remind you that this wasn't my idea, and I _did_ try to put a stop to it. I'm sorry I wasn't successful. You, however, could put a little bit of effort into trying to relax and enjoying yourself."

"I just feel," I stopped. "You know what, forget it. Let me go get my mother's apology over with and then I'm going upstairs. No one here gets it anyway."

Maura started to argue with me, but we'd made it into the kitchen, where Ma was with Cavanaugh.

"Oh, hey, Jane," Cavanaugh said, taking off the oven mitt on his hand and walking around the island to greet me. "You look terrific. It's so good to see you."

He gave me a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Hey," I said quietly, my ongoing argument with Maura temporarily forgotten. "How have you been?"

"Okay. Busy with work. We're short-staffed," Cavanaugh said matter-of-factly.

"I heard. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry we're short-staffed?" he asked, amused.

"I'm sorry I left the way I did, and that I left you short-staffed."

Cavanaugh shrugged, trying to play what he said next off as casually as possible. "Yeah, well, I've heard that you may be looking for a job in a couple of months."

"Maybe," I said, and I felt Maura pinch me. "Probably," I added.

"When you're ready to do your physical qualifications and your interview, give me a call," Cavanaugh said. "The place hasn't been the same without you," he added.

"Thanks. I miss you guys. It would be great to come back and work for you," I said softly. It seemed like too much to hope for, though.

"We miss you too. Well, except Crowe. That douchbag has been so far out of line since you've been gone. I can't wait for you to come back and make his life hell."

"Um, thanks," I said quietly. Was that really what everyone thought of me? Was I really there to just make everyone's lives hell?

"Don't be a stranger, Rizzoli. When you're out of rehab, come visit. I'd like to see you in my office a few times before we actually get the process started," Cavanaugh said, interrupting my thoughts.

"Okay, I'll do that. Thanks Lieutenant."

"See you soon, Rizzoli."

He gave me another hug before he walked out to go mingle with the other guests, and that left Maura, Ma, and me alone together. Ma was glaring at me.

"Ma, I just wanted to apologize for the way I acted. You were doing something nice for me and I took it the wrong way. I'm sorry for upsetting you. I apologized to Maura too, but since you're both here I should apologize to you both together. You obviously put a lot of hard work and effort into this, to make me happy," I tried to sound genuine, but my tone betrayed just how mad I was deep down. Yeah, they'd done something nice for me, but I wasn't ready for it, and they were acting like I'd committed some mortal sin by reminding them of that fact. More than anything else, I was so upset that they didn't understand where I was coming from.

"I don't know what's the matter with you, Jane, but I did not expect that kind of treatment from you. Or to see you treat Maura that way either," Ma accused, seeing right through my apology.

"Look, I was wrong, and I said I am sorry. I lashed out because I'm overwhelmed and I'm uncomfortable. The timing for this was not right for me. I'm not ready for any of this," I explained, trying to keep my anger and my tears in check.

"Jane, I just don't understand why you wouldn't be happy to see all of these people. They're all here because they're happy you're going to be okay." Ma was looking at me like I had two heads. I felt like enough of a freak at that point that maybe I did have two heads.

"It was just too much, too soon, Ma. Although I don't like surprises at all, if I looked more like myself and was able to get around without help, I probably would have been less self-conscious and less overwhelmed."

"Still, Janie-"

"Ma, look, thank you. I know you had good intentions. Thank you. And I'm sorry to both of you for lashing out."

Maura was watching me sympathetically. Maybe she did finally understand where I was coming from. Ma, on the other hand, had put on her "you-just-wait-until-the-guests-leave" face that she used to give me as a child and straightened her apron.

"Jane, honey, why don't you go out and say hello to everyone while I get the food out? We'll be eating soon." Yup, there it was. Ma was changing the subject, which meant she was done with the topic and I'd be hearing more about it later. Why did this weekend have to turn out like this? It had been going so well up until that damned surprise party.

I turned around and hobbled out of the kitchen, back toward the living room, and sat back down on the couch. Maura had made no move to follow me, and it aggravated me even more that she had promised to stay with me the entire time, but was now in the kitchen with my mother. I put my head in my hands and wished that I could just disappear. I felt the couch next to me dip.

"Hey partner."

I looked up to see Frost there.

"Not having a very good time, are you?" he asked.

"No, I really am not. And I feel like an ass because Ma and Maura obviously went out of their way to do this for me."

"I didn't really think it was a good idea when your mother called me, but you know how she is once she gets an idea in her head," Frost explained. "And Maura did try to talk her out of it. I heard her on the phone several times. So don't blame her, okay?"

"Yeah," I said glumly.

"You do look fantastic though. It's only been a week since I last saw you and you really do look better than you did."

"Maura did my hair and makeup, that's probably why," I said morosely.

"It's more than that. Even despite everything going through that head of yours right now, you look settled. You look like you finally found what you were looking for. That's a good look on you, Jane."

"I have. Well, that's if I didn't screw everything up today. Maura's pretty mad at me, despite what she just told me."

"She's one of the most forgiving people I've ever met. Be honest with her but don't be hurtful. For what it's worth, I don't think you're completely unjustified in not having wanted this party. But you're here, so you might as well enjoy it," Frost said gently. He gave me his "I'm-on-your-side-but-I'm-still-the-voice-of-reaso n" look.

"Yeah, I guess so. I didn't think I'd actually look forward to going back to rehab, but after this party, it's starting to look like a vacation," I muttered.

"You didn't have a good weekend?"

"I did up until this party. Maura and I talked about so much. It was wonderful just spending so much time with her." That was the first happy, honest thing I could say so far at that party. Thinking about it made me feel a little calmer.

"Then don't let this party ruin the weekend. Go mingle. Go see TJ. He asks about you all the time, you know," Frost encouraged.

"I didn't know you saw him that often." I was surprised.

"Sometimes Tommy picks up TJ at daycare and stops by the precinct so Frankie can drive him home. Tommy carries a picture of you, Frankie and himself in his wallet, and TJ likes to take it out and show it to me. It's adorable. He calls you 'Aunt Danie'. Apparently the letter J is a bit difficult for him."

"I'm surprised he even remembers me."

"He knows you from the picture. Go say hi to them, Jane. Go enjoy yourself. Don't worry about what anybody thinks. Everybody here loves you."

"Thanks Frost."

Frost got up to walk away, and before I could get up myself, Rondo sat down next to me.

"Vanilla, lookin' FIIII-IIINE." He grinned at me enthusiastically. "Long time no see, Vanilla."

"Rondo, how the hell are you?" I asked. I was shocked that he was there.

"Better now that I see you. I heard about what happened to you, I'm real glad to see you're okay."

"Thanks Rondo. And thanks for coming to the party. I hear they don't see much of you around the precinct anymore."

"Nah. I worked for Vanilla. But if they really needed me, I'd help 'em out," he said proudly.

"You staying safe, Rondo?" I wondered what he did with his time, where he slept at night, and if he ever felt as apprehensive about what the next moment would bring, like I had been feeling since I'd woken up in Hartford three months earlier.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Been working at the youth shelter and the veterans outreach. I pick up paying gigs every now and then too."

"Now that I'm back in town, if you need anything, you get in touch, you hear?" I wanted him to know I was just as available to him as I was before I left. As much of a pest as he'd been, he was a good man and he'd helped me out many times before.

"You got it, Vanilla." He beamed at me.

"It's good seeing you, Rondo." And it was good, seeing him. I hadn't realized that I'd missed him until that moment.

"Good seeing you too, Vanilla. Get well soon, ya hear?"

"I do hear." I smiled as I got up slowly and made my way cautiously across the living room, holding on to furniture as I went, to the dining room to see TJ.

TJ was down on the floor, playing with Matchbox cars. Tommy and Lydia sat on dining room chairs, chatting. I came up to them slowly, trying to keep as much of the lurch out of my walk as I could. I regretted not using the crutches, and was terrified of falling down in front of all of these people. I looked around again and Maura was still nowhere to be found. TJ looked up at me as I approached, and he jumped up and clung to his mother's legs. Lydia looked up to see me coming.

"Hey Jane, it's good to see you," she said sweetly as she stared at me.

"Hey Lydia. How are you?"

"Okay," Lydia said, still gaping at me and my tremulous approach over to them all.

TJ continued to cling to Lydia's legs. I sat down on the chair next to Lydia and bent over to peer at TJ. He had his face buried in his mother's lap.

"Hey buddy," I said quietly. "I missed you." I reached out and touched his arm, and he yanked it away from me.

"TJ, say hi to Aunt Janie," Tommy said quietly.

"No!"

"It's okay little buddy. It's been a long time. I'm Aunt Jane. I love you very much."

"NO! Not Aunt Danie!"

"Yes, I am." I leaned down and touched his hair, letting one of his little ringlets curl around my finger. He may have been growing in leaps and bounds, and I'd missed so much, but he still had baby-soft hair. In that moment he was still more baby than toddler, clinging to his mother.

Lydia picked up TJ and pulled him into her lap, so that he was facing me. "Sorry Jane, it's just he's a little shy around strangers and he hasn't seen you for a long time."

"I know, it's okay."

"TJ, you want to play with your cars? Aunt Janie can show you how fast they go," Lydia asked, trying to distract her son.

"No."

I picked up one of the cars and handed it to him. "Look at this one, buddy. That's a Mustang! That's a fast car!"

TJ turned his face and hid against his mother. I put the car down on the dining room table, giving up. "It's okay, TJ. I get it." I gave Lydia and Tommy a tight smile and got up to head back into the kitchen. I really should have expected that. I'd been gone from TJ's life for three quarters of a year, almost one third of his life. I looked completely different. I shouldn't have been nearly as surprised or as hurt as I was that he didn't recognize me and didn't trust me. It still stung though.

I walked back into the kitchen looking for Maura, She was there, along with Frankie and Ma all huddled together in conversation. They all stopped and looked at me when I walked in.

"What?" I asked quietly.

"Did you need something?" Ma asked tersely.

"No, I just… forget it." I said, and turned around and walked back out. I looked around the living room, and all the seats were taken. I didn't want to go back over to sit with Lydia and Tommy in the dining room, and the kitchen was apparently off limits.

"Jane, wait-" Maura said as I turned away. I heard Ma say something to her, and whatever it was that she said, Maura didn't follow me. I didn't stick around to see what they were all doing.

I'd really had enough of that party, I decided. So I walked quietly upstairs to the guest bedroom. Even Maura's bedroom felt off limits to me at that point.

I looked at the hospital bed and cringed. I'd be back to sleeping in one of those that night. I didn't want to sit on it then. Instead I kicked off my sneakers, pulled the plush armchair over to the window and sat on it, pulling my knees up under my chin and wrapping my arms around my calves. The position wasn't exactly comfortable, but if I could have folded myself up tight enough to disappear, I would have.

I looked out over Maura's front yard and wondered if I'd really gotten what I'd wanted to begin with when I left for New York. I felt completely disconnected from everyone.


	34. Chapter 34

**A/N:** Well, I do have to say the response to the last chapter was far better than I imagined it would be. Thank you to each of you who left me feedback, both positive and negative. You were all kind and constructive, and I am immensely thankful for that. Let's have Jane and Maura work through this now, shall we? :)

* * *

I had been upstairs for a while, right at the edge of sleep. I had let myself cry for the first time in weeks, and it exhausted me. I was cold and sore, and I just wanted to disappear.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard someone walking around upstairs. I heard Maura's bedroom door open and the bathroom door in Maura's room open and close too. I heard someone walk into the bathroom across the hall from the guestroom and back out too.

"I don't know, Angela. I don't see her." It was Maura.

"I'll kill her."

"She didn't just get up and leave, Angela. Where would she have gone?" Maura replied tersely. I wasn't sure if she was mad at me or my mother.

I curled up tighter in the chair. Where could I go? I had nowhere to go. It was here or rehab, and neither place felt all that welcoming at the moment.

"Do you think it was her brain injury?" Ma asked Maura suddenly. "I mean, she was so rude before."

"I actually think she had a valid point, Angela. She reacted just like I would expect Jane to react. She felt cornered and overwhelmed, so she lashed out. That's not new for her. She wasn't ready for this, and we forced it on her anyway. Could she have reacted more maturely? Yes. But I didn't expect a different reaction from her. Besides, she apologized to both of us, more than once, so you really shouldn't be so angry with her," Maura chastised.

"She has guests waiting for her downstairs. Dinner is getting cold. How could she just disappear like this? _What __is __wrong __with __her__?_" Ma ignored Maura's subdued scolding, her anger over appearances taking precedence over everything else. Rizzolis did not, as a general rule, disappear from their own parties and make guests wait for food.

"Why don't you go check the guesthouse and the garage?" Maura's tone had gotten a bit harsher. "If we don't find her, I'll ask Frost and Frankie to drive around the neighborhood to look for her."

"Fine." Ma was fuming. I tried to bring myself to care and I just couldn't.

I could picture my mother throwing her hands up in exasperation as she turned to go back downstairs. I listened to her heavy footsteps on the stairs as she made her way down, and I heard Maura's lighter footsteps enter the room behind me.

"Jane?"

I didn't move. It's not that I wanted to hide from Maura. I was pretty sure she already knew where I was. I had moved the chair away from the wall where it usually was and had curled up on it to look outside. She could clearly see the chair was out of place from the hallway, even if she couldn't see me curled up in it from behind.

I just sat there. I had no idea what to say to her, so I made no move to let her know I was there.

"Jane?" Maura had walked up behind the chair and put her hand on the back. "Baby are you all right?"

I wanted to tell her that it was unfair of her to call me baby. Baby was a term of endearment, and I clearly had not endeared myself to her that day. Baby signified that she cared about me, but my behavior earlier wasn't deserving of care, however it was clearly what everyone who knew me expected of me.

"Oh Jane." Maura had come around to the front of the chair, between me and the window, and was kneeling down to eye level. She reached a hand up and brushed away the tear tracks left by my mascara. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

I just sat there, my eyes fixed somewhere behind where Maura was kneeling. I didn't know what to say. It hurt me that my own family wasn't ready to deal with my insecurities. It made me sick to think I had so many insecurities to begin with. But the worst part had been the rejection I'd felt when I'd walked into the kitchen and it looked like I'd been intruding on their secret gathering. I didn't fit in with my own family anymore. I hated the feeling. I hated myself for winding up in that situation at all.

A fresh batch of tears started to make their way down my cheeks.

"Jane, honey. Talk to me. Please."

I looked at Maura, finally, and saw the worry on her face. I reached a hand out and gently tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear.

"You deserve so much better," I whispered.

"What?" Maura asked.

"Than this. With me. You deserve someone who can make you happy. Someone that's not going to be a constant disappointment. Someone more sure of who they are and more mature than me," I whispered hoarsely. Crying before hadn't left me with much of a voice.

"Jane, what I said to your mother in the hallway-" Maura started, apologetically.

"Was the truth. And the truth hurts sometimes. I know."

"No, Jane, that's not true. It was wrong of me to force you to come to the party. I saw you weren't ready to see everyone, and I thought that by making you go, you'd see that you had no reason to be afraid of what people thought of you. I thought I could bolster your confidence. I never meant to hurt you."

"I don't fit in with my own family anymore, Maura." I started crying again.

"Of course you do! They love you, Jane. We all love you. _I_ love you."

"What was that, in the kitchen before?"

"Your mother was… she was upset with you, with the way you reacted to the party. She thought that your reaction to the party and our announcement to her about becoming a couple may all somehow be tied into your head injury. She thought that you may have residual problems related to your head injury. Frankie and I were setting the record straight and you walked in right in the middle of it."

"So Ma thinks I'm gay because I hit my head?" I didn't know whether to be even angrier or amused. That was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard.

"Not anymore. But she did," Maura said, a tinge of aggravation in her voice.

"I _knew_ she wasn't completely on board with us. I could just tell by the way she stayed away all weekend."

"I can't make excuses for her, but I think more than anything else, she's still really shocked by the news. Think about it, Jane. We had ourselves convinced we could be happy if we just stayed friends, so is it really a surprise that your mother was convinced of that too? She wants you to be happy, but she was shocked by our news. She's trying to get used to the idea, and she's looking for ways to explain the sudden shift in our relationship." Maura shrugged. Her powers of logic far exceeded my mother's, and she was having a hard time understanding where Ma was coming from too, but at least she'd tried to work it out for herself. All I felt toward my mother at that point was anger.

"I'm sorry for that." I felt the need to apologize for my mother's behavior, which was stupid. I wasn't responsible for her.

"You don't have to apologize for her behavior. And you apologized for your behavior earlier, which is a sign of maturity. I didn't mean to be insulting when I was speaking to your mother before. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry for lashing out," I muttered.

"I'm glad you did. I'm worried about you, Jane. I think you're depressed. When you lashed out, it was more like your old self. It was almost a relief." It must have been, because Maura sounded more relieved than anything else.

"You shouldn't worry about me. I've already caused everyone enough worry."

"I love you," Maura said fiercely, "and with that comes worry. I worry if you're not happy. I worry if you don't feel well. I worry that after today you're going to rethink coming home here. I worry about a lot, and I only do it because I love you."

"Maybe it would be better if I got a place of my own," I said quietly.

Maura looked absolutely crushed. She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "If that's what you want, I'll help you to do that."

"But it's not what you want," I said.

"No, not at all. I want you to come here, and to make this your home. I want you to be happy here, with me. But what I want doesn't matter. What do _you_ want, Jane?"

"You. I want you, Maura." I was crying, but I had to make myself understood. "I want to wake up like we did this morning every day for the rest of our lives. I want to fall asleep at night holding you. I want you to never doubt how deep my feelings for you run. I want to love you, protect you and make you happy. I want you to feel safe with me. I want to honor and cherish you. But more than anything else, I want to be the person who is able to do all of those things. I feel like I'm not right now. And I'm so scared that I never will be."

"But you already do," Maura sobbed. "You do all of those things already, Jane."

I shook my head. "Not like I used to."

Maura shook her head too. "We can't go back. We can only move forward. Neither one of us is ever going to be who we were before you left for New York. We can't go back, but we can grow together. We can build our own future and be who we want to be, together. We're limited only by our imaginations."

"And my physical limitations," I pointed out angrily.

Maura grabbed my hand and held it between both of hers. "Those limitations will go away, Jane. They're already starting to. When you came home on Friday, the four steps outside the house were a challenge to you. This afternoon you made it up the entire staircase inside by yourself. You've spent almost a day and a half off of your crutches and relying on me to help you get around. Just the fact that you're up and walking and talking and _alive_ is more than any of us could have hoped for at first. But the truth of the matter is that if you were never able to get up, if you were never able to speak to me again, if you were never able to open your eyes again, I would still love you as much as I do now. You are everything to me, Jane, and I love you no matter who you are or who you become."

"I love you too," I whispered.

"And I'm sorry, Jane. I'm so sorry for how this turned out today. I _tried_ to tell your mother this party was a bad idea, and she convinced me that the party was for both you _and_ Frankie, and somehow, I don't know. Somehow I thought that if the party was for both of you, it wouldn't be so bad. I thought it would be good for you, to see all the people that care about you. I thought that if you could be surrounded by people who love you, that you'd feel better about yourself. I… I saw it almost as an exercise in socializing. I knew how you felt about yourself and I guess I convinced myself that you needed an opportunity to be around people in a safe way. I was stupid to think that this was a safe way of doing things. You were overwhelmed and you had every right to be. I didn't imagine it turning out this way, and I'm so sorry. You were right to be angry with me and your mother. I want to apologize for us both, but I can't do that. I can only apologize for my part in this, and I'm sorry."

Maura wiped her eyes and took a second to catch her breath before she looked back up at me, eyes wide, begging for understanding. "Do you think you can ever forgive me?"

I was crying again too. The worst feeling in the world was watching Maura Isles cry. I felt somewhat vindicated by her apology, and the last thing I wanted to do was hold a grudge against her. I loved her for crying out loud.

"Yeah, I think I already have," I said softly.

Maura leaned in to kiss me. It started out slow and sweet, but all of the pent up emotion from the day worked its way into the kiss and soon my hands were tangled in her hair and our tongues were snaking their way into each other's mouths. We broke apart when we were both desperate for air.

"I'm sorry for something else, Maura."

"What? There's nothing for you to apologize for," she answered, clearly puzzled.

"Yes, there is. I'm sorry I wasn't ready to have sex with you this weekend. It's not because I didn't want to. I'm just not ready yet. I'm making it a goal though, to be ready when I come back home."

"You never, ever have to apologize for that Jane," she said fiercely. "If we never have sex it would be fine. But I know we will. I know you will be ready at some point, and when it happens, it will be worth the wait."

"You really are amazing," I said, wonderment filling my voice. "I still think you deserve better than me, but if you're willing to put up with me, I'll never leave you," I said with a weak smile.

"It's never putting up with someone when you love them. We're going to get through this, Jane. Together. You're not alone," she promised.

I kissed her once more before she stood up.

"Do you want to come downstairs for dinner?" I could hear the hesitation in her voice. There'd be no forcing me, this time.

I shrugged. "I guess I should."

"But what do you _want_?" she asked me.

"I want to go with you. Sit next to you. Wrap my arm around you or hold your hand. I want to feel you next to me. I want to smell your bodywash and your shampoo when I nuzzle against your neck."

The smile Maura gave me could have lit up an entire city.

"I want that too. Let's go clean up and then go downstairs, okay?"

"Okay," I agreed.

We cleaned up in Maura's bathroom and reapplied our makeup. She helped me down the stairs, where everyone was already eating.

"Where were you? I was just about to send your brother out to look for you!" Ma hissed at me, embarrassed by my absence.

"I was in the guest room. Gathering my thoughts," I said, keeping my anger at my mother out of my voice.

"Maybe you should think about other people for once, instead of just yourself." She scowled at me.

"Really Ma? Maybe you should take your own advice," I spat back.

Ma gathered herself up, ready to yell, when Maura cut in.

"Angela, please. Let's enjoy dinner, shall we? Your lasagne smells wonderful," Maura interjected, diffusing the situation before it could get further out of hand.

We walked over to the kitchen island and made plates for ourselves. Tommy waved us over to the dining room table. There were two seats empty between Tommy and Frankie.

"Janie, we saved you seats!" Tommy yelled with his mouth full, and Frankie gave him a glare before starting to laugh. Tommy would never, in all of his life, learn to not speak with his mouth full. It was just Tommy.

I grabbed the gift I had for Frankie off the front hall table and we made our way over to the table.

Maura made sure I was settled before she sat down next to me. She took my right hand in her left hand and gave it a squeeze, and we started to eat.

"You okay, Janie?" Frankie asked me quietly as I ate.

"Yeah. I am now. Thanks Frankie. And I'm sorry about before," I said sincerely.

"You don't have to apologize to me," Frankie said gallantly.

"Yeah, I do."

"Don't worry about it," Frankie said kindly, shoveling some lasagne into his mouth.

"Listen, I got you this. I hope you didn't already get one from someone else. I always promised that when you made detective I'd get you one of these. I had to order it online, and when I looked at it when I wrapped it this morning, I realized it wasn't the best quality. So if you don't like it or if it's not holding up well, we can go get you another one when I come home in a couple of weeks."

I handed him the wrapped gift.

"Janie, you didn't have to get me anything," Frankie said, surprised.

"Yes, I did. I'm really proud of you, Frankie. I'm so glad you got your gold badge. Congratulations. Go ahead, open it up."

Frankie opened the package and stared at leather badge holder. He pulled his badge out of his pocket and placed it inside.

"I've been carrying this thing around without anything on it, because I remembered what you told me." He grinned.

"Let me see that badge." I grabbed it from him before he could protest, and held it reverently. I remembered holding my own badge that way after I'd finally earned it. I traced my fingers over the engraving, lingering over the bold RIZZOLI in the center of the shield. I smiled at him as I gave it back. "Wear it with pride, brother."

"Thanks, Jane." The pride on Frankie's face was evident. He was so happy.

"I don't have to tell you to be careful out there. Don't do anything stupid, Frankie." I felt weird warning him, considering I'd gotten myself into trouble so many times before, but now that life seemed a little more fragile, I thought it best to warn him to take care of himself anyway.

"You know I won't. I have the Rizzoli reputation to live up to."

I gave him a weak smile. "Blaze your own trail, Frankie. Don't follow in my footsteps. Look at where I wound up."

"You're still a legend, Jane. And you're going to come back and I'm going to have a hell of a lot to live up to. I'm not letting you give up," he argued.

"I hope I don't disappoint you," I said, shaking my head.

"The only way you could, is if you stopped trying."

I looked at him sadly. I'd never stop trying, but that might just mean I was setting myself up for a lifetime of disappointment.

Frankie squeezed my arm in understanding and got up. "You want some cannoli? Ma's putting dessert out."

"Nah, I'm full. But thanks."

Frankie got up to go get some dessert and I felt Maura squeeze my arm.

"That was sweet," she said, smiling.

I leaned against her shoulder. "It's good that there's still a Rizzoli in the department. He'll go far if he keeps his act together."

"He was right, you know. He has a lot to live up to, and he's going to feel a lot better when you go back to work. He knows he doesn't need it, but he knows you're going to look out for him." Maura looked just as proud of me as I looked about Frankie.

"I hope I can go back and look out for him. But right now, I'm not sure I'm going to qualify for duty."

"You will. And you heard Sean earlier, he wants to see you before you go for your interviews. He wants you back on his squad. He's going to be pulling for you. We all are."

"I'm terrified of disappointing everyone."

"Like Frankie said, the only way you could disappoint anyone is if you stopped trying."

Frankie came back with a plate of pastries and shared them with all of us. I helped myself to an eclair even though I said I didn't want anything. I was going to miss all this food when I went back to rehab.

After dessert, people started to leave, a few at a time. Frankie stayed next to me, so that people could say their farewells to both of us. It took some of the pressure of of me, but it felt like a kick in the gut every time someone would tell me to hurry up and get well so I could go back to work with Frankie. They truly had no idea how hard I was trying, or the amount of effort that was involved. Their ignorance and their insensitivity was making me livid.

Maura sensed my tension and put her hand on my thigh, under the table. She started making figure eights with her finger, slowly, and it calmed me down considerably.

Korsak and Frost were the last two non-family members to leave. Lydia, her mother Rene and TJ had left earlier, when TJ started getting cranky.

Korsak and Frost both kissed my cheek and wished me well while Anna and Dana waited at the front door.

"Cavanaugh says you might be coming in to see us when you move to outpatient rehab," Korsak said.

"Yeah, he said he wants to see me before I interview and before my physical qualifications."

"That's great, Jane," Frost said. "It'll be great to have you back."

"Keep your fingers crossed for me," I said.

"You don't need luck, Jane. Just keep doing what you're doing, and be yourself." Korsak squeezed my arm as he and Frost walked to the front door and the group of them left together.

Tommy and Frankie were busy helping my mother clean up. Maura had left to go help them as I was speaking to Korsak and Frost. I got up to help them, and walked into the kitchen to see them. Once again I walked in, and the conversation stopped.

"You people really have got to stop doing that. I can't come and live here if I constantly feel like I am intruding on something. If you have something to say to me, then say it to me. Stop it with these secret powwows," I growled.

"We were just talking about how nice it was to have everyone here," Frankie said.

"And?" I asked.

"And Tommy remarked that it was great to see you up and walking. And Maura said that she's proud of you for being so strong. And Ma still thinks you're gay because you hit your head," Frankie shrugged at the end.

"I do not!" Ma yelled. "Really, Jane, I did mention that earlier but I just asked if it was possible. They told me it wasn't and Maura's a doctor so I believe her."

I looked from Ma to Frankie and back again, and Frankie started to crack up. "It was really funny, Janie. She really thought that a head injury could make you gay."

I watched Frankie laugh. "If that was true Ma, Tommy wouldn't be a baby daddy. How many times did he fall on his head when we used to play roller hockey in the driveway with the Talucci kids?" I joked.

"Hey!" Tommy protested, not at all happy that we'd turned the joke around on him.

"I see your point." Ma said, starting to laugh too. She leaned over and kissed Tommy's cheek, and he pushed away from her, but laughed too.

"So, Janie, you gotta go back tonight?" Tommy asked, sobering.

"Yeah," I said quietly.

"But Ma says you might come home soon."

"The doctor and my therapist say anywhere between two weeks and a month. The sooner the better though."

Frankie's cell phone rang, and he excused himself to go answer it. Ma left the kitchen to continue cleaning up.

"I should go," Tommy said. "I gotta work in the morning."

"Thanks for coming, Tommy. It was great to see TJ again."

"I'm gonna bring him by the rehab next time I come, Janie. This way he starts getting used to you again." Tommy had sensed my hurt and my disappointment when TJ had rejected me earlier, and I gave him a lot of credit. The Tommy I'd grown up with hadn't been that sensitive. Fatherhood was teaching Tommy many things.

"You're great for offering, but hopefully I'll be home soon and you won't even have to come all the way out to the rehab to see me."

"Where are you going to go from rehab, Jane? Do you need a place to stay? My apartment is total crap, but I got a couch with your name on it if you need it," he offered sweetly.

Maura walked over to me, and I could sense her hesitation. Our conversation from earlier had left doubt in her mind, it was easy to see.

"Nah, Tommy. Thank you though." I wrapped my arm around Maura's waist and hugged her close to me. "I have a home right here, and a beautiful girlfriend waiting for me."

"All right Janie." He leaned in and gave us each a kiss on the cheek. "I'll see you guys soon, right?"

"Yeah, thanks Tommy," I said as he left.

Frankie stuck his head into the kitchen. "Jane, Maura, I gotta go. I caught a case. Thank you so much for the party. Janie, thank you for my badge holder."

"You're welcome. Congratulations, Frankie. Be careful out there."

"I will."

Frankie left and Ma brought in the last of the plates to put in the dishwasher.

"That's the last of the dishes. I'll come by tomorrow while you're at work to vacuum and clean the kitchen."

"You don't have to do that, Angela." Maura looked confused by Ma's offer. Maura had people that came to the house and did those things. Ma wasn't one of those people.

"It's the least I can do. You let me have a party here for two of my kids."

"If you want to, it's fine with me. But otherwise the cleaning woman will be in on Tuesday and she can take care of it."

"I'll do it, don't worry." Ma looked over to me. "I guess you have to go back to rehab tonight, huh?"

"Yeah, I do," I answered sadly.

"I'll come see you one night this week. I'll bring you some gnocchi," Ma said, as if we hadn't fought for the entirety of the party.

I decided to go for tactful. There was no point in trying to make my mother understand where my feelings came from. She didn't get it, and I doubted she ever would. Instead, I just tried to let it go, at least for the time being. "I'd like that. Thanks Ma. And, uh, thanks for the party, too, I guess."

"I'm sorry you were uncomfortable, Jane."

"I am too," I said. It was the truth. I was sorry I was so uncomfortable. I wished I hadn't been.

"When you come home, we'll have a real Sunday dinner with your brothers, Korsak, and Frost," Ma said.

"Thanks."

"I'll bring Jo Friday over so you can see her before you go back, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks Ma. I'll see you during the week."

Ma walked out and Maura followed her to the guesthouse, and came back with Jo Friday a few minutes later.

"This weekend went so fast," I said as I picked up Jo Friday and held her.

"It did. We still have a few hours yet before we have to leave. What would you like to do?"

"I don't know if you'll like this idea, and it's okay if you don't, but more than anything else, I'd like to spend the rest of the time I have left here with you curled up on your bed together. Nothing more than that, just us, together."

"You want to cuddle?"

"Yeah," I replied sheepishly.

Maura smiled at me. "I like that idea."

I put Jo Friday down on the floor and she scampered off to the laundry room. I peeked in to see her crowd under the smaller heat lamp with Bass. Acantha hissed at them both.

"That turtle," I said.

"Tortoise!" Maura said with a jab. "No wonder she's so prickly. You can't even call her by the correct species!"

I laughed. "I know what she is. I just like aggravating you." I pulled Maura toward me for a kiss. "I really am sorry about today."

"I am too," she said seriously. "Are we okay?"

"Yes, we are," I reassured her. "Let's go upstairs."

We made it upstairs to Maura's room and I sat down on the bed.

"I'm really going to miss this bed when I go back tonight."

Maura had slipped off her shoes and walked to her closet. "Do you mind if I change? I just feel like putting on a pair of yoga pants."

"Go for it."

"You want a pair too?"

"Yeah, then I can go right to sleep when I get to the rehab. If I do that, I won't have time to think of how much I miss you when you leave."

"I wish you didn't have to go back," Maura said forlornly.

"I don't have to. I could stay right here. What are they going to do, come and take me back there by force?" I joked.

"Jane, you need to finish your inpatient rehabilitation," Maura replied sadly, but sternly. "You can't stop the progress you've started. If you keep this up, in a few weeks you'll be coming home for good."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but maybe coming home this weekend was a bad idea."

"Why do you say that?" Maura's face dropped.

"Because now I know how much I'm missing out on. The next few weeks are going to be miserable," I sighed.

Thankful that I wasn't still upset about the party, Maura perked right up. "I'll come see you every day, Jane. I'll bring Jo Friday with me on the weekends. And Tommy said he'll bring TJ by too, if you want."

"Maura, I want to see you every day, but it's too much for you to come there after work all the time. You're going to be exhausted. It's not going to be easy for you when I come home, at least not at first. You have to remember to take time for yourself, too."

"I'll see what I can do, Jane," Maura said resolutely. "I'm going to miss you, too."

"C'mere." Maura came up to where I was sitting on the edge of the bed and handed me the clothes she'd taken out for me, but I pulled her toward me. I hugged her to me, resting my head against her stomach. She hugged my head toward her, running her hands through the fine hair on my head.

"Your hair is so soft," she whispered. "Will you grow it long again?"

"Yes. I hope to. I'm just glad it's covering my scars now."

"You really did look gorgeous today, Jane. You could easily make this your new hairstyle if you wanted to. But honestly, I can't wait for the time when I can tangle my fingers in your curls and pull you toward me to kiss you," Maura said seductively.

"I can't wait for that too. I can't wait to feel normal again. There's so much I can't wait for."

Maura pulled away from me and smiled. "We have so much to look forward to."

"We do."

Maura shed her party outfit and pulled on her yoga pants and t-shirt. I openly appraised her as she did so, and didn't try to hide my appreciation.

"You're beautiful," I said reverently.

"So are you," she said as she walked over to me. "Hands up, Detective," she said as she gripped the hem of my shirt. I grinned at her and raised my hands in the air. She pulled the shirt off and then stopped to look at me.

"That bra and panties set suits you so well. I may have to pick up more of them for you so they're here for you when you come home again."

"No. Stop buyin' me stuff," I said with a grin. "I have enough bras and underwear… somewhere. Where is all my stuff, by the way?" I asked, suddenly realizing I had not a single clue where all of my life's possessions had wound up.

"In a storage facility in Brookline. Walter Laffler set it up for you when he was your guardian. He has the paperwork and the keys to the storage locker."

"The storage locker that you're paying for?" I asked, cringing.

"Yes," Maura said.

"As soon as my settlement comes in from the NYPD, we're going to change the billing over to me. I can't believe how much money you've been shelling out on my behalf. You're too generous, Maura. I'm not worth all of this."

"Yes you are, Jane. And the storage doesn't cost nearly as much as you think it does. Don't worry about it, all right?"

"I do worry about it though. Even if I do go back to work and start making my old salary, I still can't provide for you the same way you've been providing for me."

"You provide for me in other ways, Jane. This is just money. The way you make me feel is priceless."

"You do the same to me," I said as I pulled the t-shirt and yoga pants on. "I love you so much, Maura."

"I love you, too."

I scooted back onto the bed, laying my head on the pillow. I patted the spot next to me, and Maura laid down facing me.

"Do you know what happened to my car?" I asked.

"I had it towed here. It's in the second garage, under a tarp. Walter Laffler canceled the insurance on it though, so you wouldn't have to pay for it while you were unable to drive. We'll add it to my policy when you're ready to start driving again."

"Or I can get my own policy so your rates don't go up."

"Jane, we can do whatever you want to do, but if we're going to be a couple that lives together, don't you think we should do things like have the same insurance policies?"

"Is that what people do, as soon as they move in together? Or is that something we should wait until we get married to do?"

"We can do whatever you want, Jane. I'm not trying to make you feel uncomfortable. I just thought it would be easier to add your car to my policy. We could just call my broker and get you your own policy though. I'm sorry if I'm rushing things. You did say you wanted to take things slowly."

"Let's worry about it when I come home, okay? I don't even know when I'm going to be cleared to drive again," I said, shrugging.

"Probably not long after you start outpatient therapy. Your cognitive skills and your reflexes are in good shape. I imagine that by the time you leave for outpatient therapy or shortly thereafter, you'll be cleared for a number of things. Driving. Sex. Exercise, and maybe even non-contact sports. Perhaps even desk duty."

"Desk duty. I hadn't even thought of that. You think that's what Cavanaugh has in mind for me? Maybe that's why he wants to see me before my interview and physicals," I wondered out loud.

"It could be."

"Man, that would be awesome. It would be boring as hell, too. But still, awesome." The idea of it made me grin.

"It would be better than sitting here, by yourself all day. It would definitely help to get you back into the swing of things," Maura agreed.

"Mmm. Yes, it would." I wrapped my arms around Maura and pulled her in close to me. "Do you mind if we just stay like this?"

"Not at all. How long did you have in mind?"

"Forever?" I asked, smiling against her shoulder.

"Forever sounds good," she said as she gave me a squeeze.

Maura and I stayed curled up with each other for a few hours, just talking and occasionally kissing, before it was time to get up and get ready to go back to the rehabilitation center. I gathered up my coat and my cell phone, and walked Jo Friday back over to my mother. Ma gave me a big hug and told me she'd see me during the week. I was still pretty angry with her, but she was acting as if nothing was wrong, and I didn't want to go back to rehab on a sour note, so I let it go.

Maura placed my crutches into the back seat of the car and helped me into the front passenger seat. Within minutes we were back on our way. I had to fight against tears the entire way there, and Maura was quiet too, making me think she was just as upset as I was.

We pulled up at the rehab center a little before ten o'clock. Maura parked near the entrance and turned off the car, but didn't get out right away.

I watched her wipe a tear from the corner of her eye.

"I want you to know that sending you back in there, especially after the weekend we had, is one of the hardest things I've ever done. I know you don't have a choice, but I hate that you're leaving again."

"But this time, you can come visit me whenever you want. It's not like before. It's not like when I left for New York," I replied sadly.

"I know, but it still hurts the same way, maybe just to a lesser degree."

"We could run away," I said with a grin. "We could go live on that tropical island you wrote about in your letter."

Maura gave me a tight smile. "I wish."

"I wish too."

She leaned across the center console and kissed me. "I love you, Jane. So please get well soon and come home for good."

"I love you too. Are you going to come up with me?"

"Of course. I just wanted to kiss you first." She kissed me again to emphasize her point. Then she got out of the car, took my crutches out of the back seat, and opened my door for me. She wrapped her arms around my waist, and I carried the crutches, no longer dependent on them as long as I had Maura's arm around me. We walked back into the rehab together, both of us far stronger than we were when the weekend first started.


	35. Chapter 35

We checked in with the front desk and at the nurse's station on my floor. Maura walked with me to my room, which looked largely untouched since I'd left it on Friday. Maura hung up my coat in the closet and I plugged my cell phone in to charge. A nurse came in to make sure I'd already taken my evening medications, and to ask if there was anything I needed. When I responded in the negative, she left.

"Will you stay with me tonight?" I asked Maura hopefully.

"I can't Jane. I'm so sorry. I have to be at work really early tomorrow. I'm certain Dr. Pike left me a mess to deal with." Maura sounded as disappointed as I felt.

"I'm sorry that you had to call him in for the weekend," I said, looking down, saddened that I'd taken her away from so many more important things.

"I'm not. It let me spend the weekend with you. If you get into bed, I'll stay with you until you fall asleep."

"You should go home and rest, Maura. I don't want you driving tired tonight or exhausted in the morning."

"Nonsense," she argued. "Come on."

She lifted the blankets for me on the bed, and I crawled in. She tucked me in and gave me a kiss on my forehead.

"This bed is not nearly as comfortable as yours," I complained.

"I know. I've slept on it with you, remember?" Maura said with a smile.

"How am I going to ever fall asleep again without your arms around me?" I complained again.

"Shh. Close your eyes, Jane." Maura sat on the side of the bed and pushed a hand gently through my hair. "Close your eyes and imagine a day at the precinct. You're feeling much better and your injuries are healed. You get a call to a scene and it's your case. I meet you there and we go over the body together, and you start processing the clues."

"Mmm," I smiled with my eyes closed.

"Imagine later on you develop a lead and go in pursuit of your suspect. A foot chase ensues, and all these months of therapy pay off, because you're faster and stronger than you ever were before."

"If only…" I murmured.

"After a while, your suspect begins to tire, and you tackle him, cuffing him and reading him his Miranda rights. You haul him back to the station and drag him into an interrogation room. Your skills are sharper than ever before, and you break him in record time. He confesses to the murder, and my autopsy collaborates his confession. It's a solid case that will result in a solid conviction."

I actually found myself drifting off to sleep while Maura held my hand and softly told me a bedtime story. It was ridiculous, but it was wonderful at the same time.

"Imagine afterward you and I go out to dinner to celebrate."

"Which restaurant would you choose?" I whispered.

"Shh… just try to sleep, Jane. But we'd go where we always do after breaking a case. We'd go to the Dirty Robber. We'd have a few drinks, you'd have a burger with extra pickles, and I'd nag you about the lack of healthy vegetables on your plate."

I smiled.

"And afterward, we'd head home, and if our spirits were still running high, we'd celebrate in a way we haven't celebrated before."

"Mmm," I mumbled again, letting my imagination run wild.

Maura was quiet for a few minutes as I drifted off. "Good night, beautiful," she whispered when she thought I'd fallen asleep.

She stayed with me awhile longer, just to make sure I fell asleep, then she left, kissing me softly on the forehead before she went. I slept straight through the night, and even though I woke up feeling well rested in the morning, the lack of Maura's presence was devastating. I couldn't wait to go home again.

I sent her a quick text before breakfast.

_Did you get home okay last night? Are you all right?_

_I'm fine. I miss you terribly. I'm already at work and it is as bad as I thought it was going to be. _

_I'm sorry I took you away from work this weekend. Thank you for taking the weekend off to be with me._

_It was more than worth it, Jane. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get there tonight though, and I'm sorry._

_I understand. Get settled back into work, and we can make plans for later in the week if you're available._

_I love you. Will you text me today when you're done with therapy?_

_Absolutely. Will you text me today when you have a few minutes between Pike clean up tasks?_

_Absolutely. Have a good day, Jane. Work hard. _

_I will. You don't work too hard. _

_I'll try. :-*_

I sent her a kiss back, and put the phone back in the drawer next to my bed.

I made my way down to the dining room for breakfast.

Breakfast was oatmeal and fresh fruit, a meal I knew Maura would be glad I was eating. It struck me that barely a month had gone by since I'd first arrived here. I was now free to eat essentially whatever I pleased. My tracheostomy had healed, and I no longer had to keep it bandaged. The same for my feeding tube incision. I was walking more and more every day, and in the course of just over a week, I'd left my wheelchair behind and was using crutches. Sure, I limped terribly and my pelvis sometimes had a mind of its own, but a month ago I was stuck in a wheelchair and using the toilet on my own was a challenge.

I'd come so far.

I still had a long way to go, but I was better than I was a month ago, and was alive and breathing on my own, which is more than I could say for three months ago. And I had Maura now, too. Life really was beginning to turn around. For the first time in years, I felt like I had blessings to count.

Derrick asked me about my weekend, and instead of being proud of me for not using my crutches to walk around the Common on Saturday, he lectured me on the importance of using them and the dangers of re-injuring myself. He was angry with me for being so foolish, and proceeded to work me extra hard on the treadmill. We were going to work on gait training in earnest starting today, and according to Derrick, I had a lot of time to make up for from my weekend at home.

Sara was waiting for me when I got back to the room. She was happy to see me. She had my bath set up and waiting for me, and when I came back out, I told her how I had been able to shower at Maura's house.

"It sounds like you had a really successful weekend," Sara said.

"It was great. It was terrific to feel so much more independent. I still needed Maura's help with some stuff, like going up and down the stairs, but otherwise I was amazed at how much I could do on my own," I said proudly.

"That's spectacular, Jane." Sara was genuinely happy for me.

"I'm pretty thrilled," I said honestly.

"That's great news, and it's really good actually. I haven't spoken to Dr. Isles yet, but if you're doing this well, you probably don't need me anymore."

"But what will happen to you?" I asked, realizing that my growing independence would mean I wouldn't need Sara for much longer.

"Well, this is actually rather fortunate. Depending on your needs and what Dr. Isles says, there's another patient that's going to be starting rehab soon, at another facility. It's possible for me to go work with them."

"Oh," I said, slightly saddened at the idea of losing my afternoon companion.

"But it depends on your needs and what Dr. Isles says," Sara said gently.

"Well, it's good at least, that you have another patient lined up. I would feel bad if I put you out of work."

Sara smiled at me. "Not at all. There are almost always new patients, sadly. But the most rewarding part of my job is seeing you regain your independence and get back on your feet."

"I couldn't have done it without you," I answered truthfully.

"No, you did it all yourself, Jane. You have every right to be proud."

Sara walked with me back to the dining hall for lunch, and we chatted more about my weekend at home. Although I was still using my crutches, I was surprised at how much less I was relying on them to support myself. It was more like they were there if I lost my balance, rather than to keep me upright with each step I took.

I had a big lunch, which was good because I was starving, and then it was time for my follow up with Dr. Grossberg. Sara came downstairs with me, and we waited outside of Dr. Grossberg's office for her to call me in.

Dr. Grossberg did a thorough physical exam, and had me walk the length of her office several times, both with and without the crutches.

"Derrick told me that you ambulated a bit this weekend without your crutches," she said neutrally, not at all as angry as Derrick had been.

"I did, but I had Maura's arm around my waist the entire time. I don't really seem to need the crutches as much to support me. I do have times though when my pelvis seems to give out and I lose my balance. I couldn't walk without either Maura holding me or the crutches to balance me for any length of time," I answered truthfully.

"I'm impressed that you're not relying on the crutches to support you as much, but I'm concerned that you might be taking things a bit too quickly. You have to be careful, Jane. I know Maura is a doctor, and I have no doubt that she took excellent care of you, but you must avoid falling or re-injuring yourself. I'm also concerned about that limp. I'd like to do some x-rays to make sure the hardware they placed in your hip is seated properly. Do you have any pain when you ambulate?"

"No, not at all. I mean, sometimes after therapy I have soreness, but I think that's just overworked muscles."

"That's good. Any pain when bending, sitting or squatting?"

I thought back to the weekend, after Maura and I had fallen asleep on the floor of the guest room. My pelvis had ached terribly after that, but that had been an extended period of time. "Nope," I decided to answer her. That issue had been the exception, rather than the rule, over the weekend.

"And you're able to ambulate for long periods without the crutches?" Dr. Grossberg looked very concerned.

"I didn't use them for about 3 hours on Saturday when my girlfriend and I walked the Common together, and did not use them for a short time yesterday while I was at home, except to go up and down the stairs. But during all of that, I had Maura physically support me. As confident as I'm becoming, I know I still need some form of support when I walk."

"It's good that you're using caution. However, I'd rather see you keep the crutches with you, for now. It's impressive that you're already starting to not use them, but you're still in therapy and you still have weaknesses. Could you humor me and at least carry them with you? Even if you feel strong enough not to need them?"

"Okay," I said with a shrug. If I didn't need the crutches, I wasn't going to use them. But if it kept people off my back, I'd carry them around with me.

"How was your weekend at home?" she asked, changing tactics.

"Wonderful!" I effused before blushing. "I, um, I have a question. It's rather personal. I'm a little embarrassed."

"I'm your doctor, Jane. You don't have to worry about being embarrassed," Dr. Grossberg reassured me.

"Okay, well, I went home and my girlfriend and I were talking, and the topic of sex came up." I was blushing furiously. I couldn't even look Dr. Grossberg in the eye. "And I was just wondering how long I have to wait before it's safe for me to have sex?"

"Well, based on the type of surgery you had, I would say that physically, at least in a gynecological sense, you're healed enough. In a musculoskeletal sense, I would say that you're probably okay as long as you don't try to do any kind of highly exertive activities or unusual positions. Without any testing, I'd venture to guess that you could engage in sexual activity whenever you feel most comfortable, within the constraints I just mentioned. If you'd like, we could schedule a visit with a gynecologist for a checkup. That might be a good idea, it would give you a more definitive answer."

"Is there a gynecologist on staff here?" I asked.

"No, we'd take you over to Mass Gen and you'd have your appointment there. It would be beneficial because I'm sure they'd want to do some imaging studies to make sure you're healing well internally."

"That seems like a lot of effort," I said, thinking about the time and expenses involved in going back to the hospital.

"Well, sooner or later it will need to be done anyway. We might as well get that set up, so that way if you need any kind of testing or treatment, we can do that for you before you head home to outpatient therapy," Dr. Grossberg encouraged.

"Okay," I said. "Do I need to ask Maura to bring me over to Mass Gen?"

"No, we'll arrange for an ambulette to bring you in the morning and return you here after your appointment. We'll schedule it for you and let you know when it's set up."

"Do you know how long it's going to be before I'm released to outpatient therapy?" I asked, already eager to go back home.

"I'd say anywhere between two weeks to a month. Probably closer to a month. I'll know more after we x-ray your hip, which we'll do quickly before you go back upstairs. If we can clean up your gait and get rid of that limp, maybe less than a month. But I would say our goal is one month."

"That seems like forever," I said, disappointed. I had really been hoping for the two week mark.

"It's good you've gone home, it'll give you something to remember and keep you focused on your therapies," Dr. Grossberg said, understanding where I was coming from.

"I can't wait to go home permanently."

"Well, keep working hard. The harder you work on all of your therapies, the sooner you'll be able to do that. I'm going to see if we can get you to Mass Gen on Thursday. We'll have them do a gynecological exam and I'll set up an MRI of your hip, since you'll be there anyway and that will give us more information about why you're limping. Until then, continue your physical and aqua therapy with Derrick and your psychological therapy with Dr. Gilfried."

"Okay," I acquiesced. I didn't want to show how disappointed I was at the prospect of it taking an entire month for me to reach outpatient therapy, but Dr. Grossberg could sense it.

"Jane, your recovery thus far has been nothing short of remarkable. You're doing far better than most other patients would be in your situation. Don't be discouraged by the time frame I've given you. It could change. It could be shorter, it could be longer. We just need to be patient and work hard, but also not overdo it."

"I understand," I said sadly. I did understand, but that didn't make it any easier.

"Sara will take you over to x-ray and we'll run some films to check your hardware. I'll have my staff let you know about Thursday. I'll see you back in a week for another follow up. Keep up the good work and the good spirits, Jane."

"Thanks, Doctor."

I left and Sara and I headed over to the x-ray room where they did some follow up x-rays of my pelvis and hip. After that, we returned to my room on the fifth floor.

"Everything go okay?" Sara asked.

"Yeah, it's just a little disconcerting to realize you're going to be stuck here for another month, at least."

"You don't know that for sure. You're having weekly follow ups with Dr. Grossberg. She could send you home at any point. You just need to keep working as hard as you have been."

"I guess," I mumbled.

"Jane, do you realize how quickly you've made progress? People with your injuries, even with the initial prognosis you were given, don't normally recover this quickly," Sara pointed out gently.

"Sometimes it just doesn't seem fast enough," I said, the frustration evident in my voice. "Especially now that I've been home. I really didn't want to come back here."

"You still have a lot of work to do. You're progressing really well, but you've still got to work on your physical therapy. I'm not even going to ask you about your psychological therapy," Sara said with a grin.

"Yeah, let's not go there," I said, but I smiled at Sara. "I'm really going to miss you if you leave. Who will keep me company during the afternoon?"

"Well, it doesn't really make sense for Dr. Isles to continue to pay for my services if you're doing this well. And if I could be of more assistance to another patient that's not doing as well as you are, well then it just makes sense for me to go work with them. But nothing is written in stone yet, so don't worry," Sara reassured me.

"I won't. And you're right, if you could help someone else, it makes sense to go help them." It would have been selfish of me to ask Maura to ask Sara to stay, but part of me was dreading long afternoons there with no one to talk to.

Sometime before dinner, a nurse came in to let me know that Dr. Grossberg had gotten me an appointment at Massachusetts General Hospital for a gynecology exam and an MRI of the pelvis and hip. Thursday morning an ambulette would bring me over to the hospital. I'd have my exam and my MRIs, then the ambulette would bring me back the same day. I didn't really give it much thought. It would be at least two weeks and probably closer to a month before I could go home again, which meant that I had that much time to work on whatever it was that was keeping me from letting Maura make love to me. It wasn't physical concerns that bothered me as much as it was emotional ones. I didn't know what I could do to make myself feel desirable, even though Maura had told me a thousand times over the weekend that she thought I was beautiful. It occurred to me that this would be something I should talk about with Dr. Gilfried, but the idea of discussing my dilemma with anyone mortified me.

Sara walked down to dinner with me and I ate by myself in one corner of the dining room. I had a lot of thoughts to sort out. I never thought that coming back to rehab after a weekend at home would leave me with this many things to deal with, but it had.

After Sara left for the night, I took out my phone and called Maura. She picked up on the first ring and sounded exhausted.

"Hey, Jane." The smile was in her voice, but I could tell she was tired.

"Hey, beautiful. You sound exhausted."

"I am. It was a rough day. Dr. Pike may have ruined a DNA sample, and it was our only one. It might jeopardize getting a conviction on a murder case," Maura said, the frustration evident in her voice.

"That's terrible. Is there any other evidence?"

"I hope so. I'm going over the body once more, just to see if there's anything else I can find," she said before stifling a yawn that I could hear anyway.

"You're still at work?"

"Yes. And I am probably going to be here all night," Maura said morosely.

"Oh god, Maura. That's terrible. I'm so sorry that you had to take this weekend off to be with me. If you hadn't, you wouldn't be in the position you're in now," I said, anger tinging my voice. Was there ever going to come a time when I didn't put people out?

"Jane, I wouldn't have traded this weekend for anything. I loved being with you, but more than that, I think we needed this time together and all the talking we did. I feel like we cleared up a lot."

"We did," I said. I left off the part where I thought we still had a lot to work through, especially me, but Maura picked up on it without me saying anything.

"Did you talk to Dr. Gilfried about this weekend?"

"No, I didn't see her today. That was actually one reason why I was calling you. You know, other than needing to hear your voice," I said. "I had a follow up with Dr. Grossberg today. She's concerned about my limp and thinks it may have something to do with my hip. The x-rays came back okay so the hardware isn't the issue. She's sending me to Mass Gen on Thursday for an MRI."

"Do you want me to go with you?" Maura asked right away.

"No, I wouldn't ask you to miss more work, especially in light of everything that happened while you were out this weekend. They're making transportation arrangements for me. I'll go, have them do what they need to do, and will be back at the rehab by the afternoon. Dr. Grossberg also arranged for me to have a gynecological exam. She sort of cleared me for sex."

"What do you mean, sort of?" Maura asked, somewhat amused.

"Basically, I think she was saying nothing too rough and nothing too kinky."

Maura let out a laugh that made my heart soar.

"Were you mortified?"

"Of course," I said, blushing at the thought.

"Does that mean that you're thinking about having sex? With me?" Maura clarified when she was done laughing.

"Maura, you don't always have to do that, you know. The only time I picture myself having sex, it's with you. And yeah, I agreed to have the gynecological exam because I think if I get that full clearance, and they tell me that I'm healed and that I'm healthy enough for that, it'll help me realize that the only thing stopping us is me, and I can get over it faster."

"I don't want you to feel pressured, Jane. I also don't want you to feel like this is something we have to do, like a chore. When the time comes, I want it to be spontaneous and romantic and full of love," Maura said adoringly.

"Me too," I said. "And the only pressure I feel is my own. I don't like feeling so unsure of myself, and I keep telling myself to get over it, but it's easier said than done."

"I understand. And I'll do anything I can to make sure you get back to feeling confident and badass," she reassured me.

"You're pretty badass, you know that Maura?"

"I learned it from you, Jane," Maura said proudly.

It amazed me, how easy it was for her to make me feel loved. "I hope that one day, I can make you feel as loved as you constantly make me feel, Maura. More than anything else, I wish I could show you just how wonderful you make me feel, and mirror that same love so you can feel the same way too."

"I already do feel the same way, Jane."

"I love you. You're exhausted. Will you sleep on the couch in your office tonight, so I don't have to worry about you driving home while you're this tired?"

"I just might have to do that," Maura said glumly.

"It broke my heart, waking up here without you this morning."

"I had a hard time falling asleep last night," Maura said. "And waking up without you didn't really help my mood this morning, either. My poor interns."

"Oh no, what did you do, Maura?" I asked, amused at her apparent guilt over mistreating her staff.

"Oh, they'll survive. They're all just going to be a little more careful when it comes to things like accuracy in language. I may have gone off on them about speaking in complete, coherent, and concise sentences. I may have even coined the phrase 'the three Cs' to get the point across. I may have also made them repeat 'complete, coherent, and concise' before I dismissed them all."

"Oh my god, Maura that's hysterical," I laughed.

She laughed along with me. "I still think they prefer me to Dr. Pike, anyway."

I laughed. "Of course they do. Everybody does. You can't compare yourself to that incompetent troll."

"Ooh, he is troll-like. Though given his tall, thin stature, troll isn't really the mythical creature I'd associate with him."

"Yeah? What would you call him then?" I challenged.

"A bumbling asshole," Maura said succinctly before we both cracked up, laughing hysterically.

"I can't believe you just said that. Also, if you're going for clarity of language, I do have to point out that assholes are not necessarily mythical."

"You're right, and I can't be hypocritical. But I can rearrange that to say that he is 'an asshole of mythical proportions'."

"That's much better, Dr. Isles. Complete, coherent, and concise."

We both cracked up again.

"I should apologize to those interns tomorrow," Maura said as she sobered.

"Nah, don't bother. If they want to work for you, they need to get their acts together. But you could bring in bagels in the morning and smooth things over a bit. Just don't keep the butter in the dead fridge," I suggested.

"Cold air is cold air, Jane," Maura quipped.

"Yes, but even interns that want to be medical examiners don't necessarily want to eat out of the same fridge that someone's entrails were stored in."

"Point taken," she said. "I should go, Jane. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize. Just be safe, and text me when you can, okay? I'll be thinking about you. Oh, and tomorrow I need to talk to you about Sara," I said quickly.

"She called me earlier, so I think I know what you need to talk to me about, but we'll talk about it tomorrow, okay?"

"Absolutely. Good night, Maura. Be safe. Don't work too hard. Get some sleep," I said lovingly.

"I will," she promised.

"I love you, Maur."

"I love you too. Good night, Jane."

* * *

**A/N:** I hated sending Jane back to rehab.

Thank you, Charlie, for the edits on this chapter and the 10 or so others I sent to you over the last week. You're the best.


	36. Chapter 36

Waking up the next morning was just as hard as it had been my first morning back in rehab. Before I even realized what I was doing, I was reaching over to find Maura and snuggle with her. The disappointment I felt when I realized she wasn't there was going to stick with me for the entire day. I rolled over and sighed, thinking about Maura.

How was it possible for one person to be so snuggly? She was a walking paradox. When I first met Maura, I never pictured her as the warm, cuddly type. But underneath all that couture, beyond the designer labels and the expertly-applied makeup and the perfect hair was the Maura I'd come to know and love. It didn't take me long to realize that Maura's frosty exterior was a cover for her sometimes awkward but always kind and generous interior. Once I got to know Maura, I loved her. She was one of the few people outside of my biological family that I vowed to protect at all costs, and despite everything that had gone on between us, that never changed. If anything, that feeling had only grown with time.

I had aqua therapy that morning, and Derrick made me work especially hard. There were never any breaks with Derrick. He didn't cut me any slack, not that I ever asked him to. I always gave him one hundred and ten percent of my effort, but there were days when, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to make the progress he was looking for from me. That Tuesday morning was one of those days.

"Detective, did you get lazy on your weekend off?" he growled.

"What do you mean, Derrick?" I asked, bewildered.

"You're forgetting things we worked on the first week you were here. Heel-toe walk, left foot first. Don't swivel your right hip," he said, trying, and failing to keep his tone in check.

I tried again, concentrating even harder on what I was doing.

"Dammit Detective, I said not to swivel your hip!"

"Jesus Derrick, I don't even realize I'm doing it," I explained, starting to get upset that he was so angry with me.

"Well pay attention!"

"I am paying attention!" I yelled back.

Derrick moved me in the shallow end of the pool, the water not quite up to my knees. "Again," he bellowed.

I started walking the length of the pool, the water creating a lot of resistance, but the shallower depth removing a lot of the buoyancy I had in deeper water. I put my left foot forward, heel first, following the natural flow of my gait. I moved my right foot forward, making a conscious effort to make the same step I had with my left foot. _Don't swivel your hip. Don't swing your foot outw__ard. Don't swivel your hip. Don't swing your foot outward._ I repeated that mantra in my head over and over again. I made it across the pool without limping. We turned around, and I walked back. _Don't swivel your hip. Don't swing your foot outward. Don't swi__vel your hip. Don't swing your foot outward._ I repeated that over and over with every step I took.

"Good," Derrick finally grunted. "We're done. I expect this level of performance from you tomorrow, Detective. And every day from this point forward."

I was really insulted. Did he actually think I wasn't making an effort? Did he have any idea how hard this was? When was the last time he had to consciously think about every step he took? Did he know what it was like to think 'Don't swivel your hip. Don't swing your foot outward,' every time he wanted to move?

Man, it was going to be exhausting if I had to think that way for the rest of my life.

_Don't swivel your hip. Don't swing your foot outward. Don't swivel your hip. Don't swing your foot outward. _All day, I kept repeating it to myself. By the time I had eaten lunch and made my way up to see Dr. Gilfried, my right hip was killing me and my patience was waning. Of all the things to have stuck in my head, having the words _Don't swivel your hip. Don't swin__g your foot outward. Don't swivel your hip. Don't swing your foot outward, _play on repeat was not my idea of a good soundtrack for life.

Dr. Gilfried looked excited to see me. I often wondered if she had the same reaction to all of her patients, or if I was some kind of pet project that she enjoyed toying with. Not that she was really toying with me. She was doing her job, after all. I just wondered about people who went into the business of feelings.

"So?" she asked, interrupting my thoughts, "how was your weekend at home?"

"Good. It was good," I said as I sat down heavily on the couch, my hip aching more with each passing minute.

"Only good?" she asked, looking genuinely disappointed.

"It was great up until the surprise party my mother threw for me. Then it temporarily changed to awful, then after everyone left and it was just Maura and I again, it got better. So if I average it out, it was good."

"What happened at the surprise party?"

"Well, it happened. The party, I mean. I've always hated parties and surprises, and yet somehow my mother thought this would be a good idea. My mother invited nearly everyone I know, and they all saw me like this. It was horrible. I got really angry at my mother for doing that, even though I'd told her before I didn't want people seeing me in this condition, and then I got mad at Maura for letting my mother go through with the plans for the party. I lashed out and told Maura it was like she didn't even know me, which was completely the wrong thing to say. I also upset my mother a great deal, and that made her ask Maura and my brother Frankie if my head injury was causing me to lash out and be gay. As if the two were somehow connected to one another."

"Wow," Dr. Gilfried said, her eyebrows raised so high in surprise I thought they'd get lost in her hair.

"Yeah, I know. I did apologize to my mother and to Maura, and Maura set my mother straight on the whole head injury thing, but I spent the better part of Sunday afternoon resenting my mother and wishing I could find a rock to crawl under."

"Why did you feel that way to begin with though?"

"I don't like people seeing me like this," I said shakily. "I feel weak, and vulnerable. And I feel like people who see me are comparing me to the person I was before my accident."

"Are they comparing you?" Dr. Gilfried asked gently.

"I don't know," I answered truthfully.

"Do you truly think they are?"

I thought about it for a moment. "No."

"Then why did you think that, Jane?"

I gritted my teeth. This was going to be a difficult session, I could tell. I took a deep breath and responded. "Because most of the people in my life have relied on me for one reason or another, and seeing me in this condition makes them think that they can't rely on me anymore."

"Has anyone actually told you that?" Dr. Gilfried asked.

"No."

"The people who know you best, don't you think they know they can still rely on you?"

"But they can't, that's the problem. I can't protect them. I can't help them if they need me. I found out that Maura has essentially been supporting both my mother and I since my accident. I should be supporting my mother, not Maura, but I can't because I can't work. And I can't help my partners with their overwhelming caseloads because I can't work. And they may never trust me to protect them again, even if I do go back to work, because they've seen me like this."

"Jane, don't you think you're putting too much stock in what other people think of you?" Dr. Gilfried asked softly. She was trying really hard to keep me from closing up on her, I could tell.

"No. I used to be the best at what I did, and people's opinion of me mattered a lot. I had to fight really hard to get to where I was professionally, and showing people my weaknesses was never an option. Now it seems like no matter what I do, my weaknesses are on display for everyone to see."

"That can be disconcerting, but don't you think the people who know you best know that this is only temporary?"

"Is it though? Is it temporary? There's a chance I will never be physically capable of being a detective again. Everyone seems to gloss right over that. I have the brains. I'm thankful that my head injury didn't take that from me. But physically, I can't walk without telling myself not to limp. I have to be able to run, jump, climb, and defend myself. I need to be able to walk into an interrogation room and look intimidating. I'm frustrating my physical therapist and my doctor, because despite their best efforts, I'm still limping. What if I never get to the point where I can run again? What if I never get to the point where I can physically requalify for duty? What then?" I asked, fighting not to cry.

"What then, Jane?" Dr. Gilfried repeated. "What happens then is completely up to you. You have your whole life ahead of you, and instead of trying to plan everyone else's perception of your life, worry about just yourself. Who cares what anyone else thinks? If you genuinely think that you might not qualify for duty again, what is your contingency plan? And don't tell me that there's nothing out there for you."

"I don't know," I answered quietly.

"I think you should concentrate primarily on your therapies, and working toward your qualification for duty physicals. But if it bothers you that much, maybe you should take some time to think about what else could make you happy in life. Life is not all work, Jane." Dr. Gilfried looked at me pointedly. She knew we were skirting a very sensitive topic, and she was watching my reactions closely. I resented being studied like that, even if I knew, deep down, it was her job to do just that.

"My life was all work, before this injury," I argued.

"No, your life was work punctuated with Maura and family. When your precinct was attacked, and you shot yourself to protect Maura and Frankie, did you stop to think what you would do if you injured yourself so badly that you couldn't work again?"

"I didn't have time to think about it," I answered sharply.

"If you did have time to think about it, would you have acted in any other way?"

"No," I answered quickly. "There's no way I was going to let Frankie die on that table or let Marino get back into that precinct near Maura."

"You were sure of yourself, even if you were not sure of what the outcome of your actions was going to be," Dr. Gilfried suggested.

"Yes," I said warily.

"How is this situation different, then?"

"I don't understand."

"Yes, you do. When you shot yourself to protect Maura and Frankie, you were sure of yourself. You knew that you were putting yourself in grave danger and, somewhere in the back of your mind, you surely knew that there was a chance that your actions could possibly result in your death, or in you being so badly injured that you would never work again. Yet you went through it anyway. You did not hesitate to do what you had to do to protect the people you loved. Now you've been severely injured and you're not sure you're going to recover. So why are you not driving forward with the same determinism you had after you shot yourself? Where is the confidence you had that day at the precinct? Why are you not plowing ahead and ignoring the doubts, like you did back then?"

"I don't know."

"I think you do know, Jane. I think you're afraid, and you don't want to admit it," Dr. Gilfried said, sitting forward, looking me straight in the eye. If she was looking to challenge me, the challenge was accepted.

"What am I afraid of then?" I asked, facing her down.

"Failure."

"What?! No."

"Yes, Jane. You're afraid of failing. You're afraid of disappointing everyone, so you won't even try. You won't gather your confidence and give this your best shot, because you're afraid it won't be good enough. What you don't seem to understand though, is that you're set to fail if you _don't_ try. If you don't try, you're automatically going to fail. People are more likely to be disappointed in you if you don't try, than if you do try and fail."

"I am trying though! I work so hard in physical therapy! Even Derrick was on my back about that today. It's like he doesn't know what I've been through or how hard I have to try to just get up and move around," I yelled.

"Physically you are exceeding everyone's expectations, Jane. Your limp aside, which, I'd like to remind you, is a perfectly normal result of the type of injury you had, you have surpassed every goal that Dr. Grossberg and Derrick have set for you." Dr. Gilfried sat back, taking a sip of her coffee. She looked like she was giving me a moment to absorb what she just said before she continued.

"But emotionally, you're still hiding. Emotionally you're only willing to put so much of yourself out there before you shrink away, and that's where the problem is. I've read up on you, Jane. I've read BPD personnel files on you. I've read the few psychological notes that were made on you following your shooting and following incidents with Charles Hoyt. I've read the internal affairs dossier they developed on you after the incident with Paddy Doyle. You never took no for an answer. You got your way- every time. You worked your way up, fending off sexism and personal issues, and you were the best at what you did. _No one_ could argue that," Dr. Gilfried expounded.

"So," she continued, "why would badass Detective Rizzoli let something like a pelvis and hip injury stand in her way?"

I had no idea how to answer her. If I had, I wouldn't be in the position I was in right then, would I have been?

"Jane?" I'd been silent for too long.

"I don't know. And that's the god's honest truth, Dr. Gilfried. I don't know."

"Do you want to know what I think?" She had quieted her tone, no longer accusatory.

"I'm almost afraid to find out," I whispered.

"Well, I'm going to tell you. And I think you might be a little surprised to hear it. I think that your injury isn't the sole cause of this fear you have. I think this stems back to losing Maura to her fiancé. I think that broke you more than any physical injury ever could."

"Oh," I said, surprised. "Maybe." I was willing to acknowledge that. It seemed plausible.

"So if you have Maura now, and she's all yours and you're as happy together as you seem to be, what's holding you back?" Dr. Gilfried asked, interrupting my thoughts.

"Me. I'm holding me back," I answered, finally sure of my response.

"Why?"

"I don't know!" I buried my head in my hands. I was dangerously close to crying, and I refused to do that.

"Jane."

"You think I'm being obstinate. You think I don't want to answer you. But I don't know, Dr. Gilfried," I stopped. Despite my best efforts, I had started crying. I hated myself for crying in that moment because it seemed to validate everything that Dr. Gilfried had just said. "I spent this entire weekend trying to figure out why I am like this. I spent the entire weekend wondering why I can't feel good about myself, and the only answer I could come up with is because I'm broken. I don't want to be broken anymore," I sobbed.

Dr. Gilfried looked at me sympathetically, then looked at my chart and and up at the clock. We still had about fifteen minutes before my session was up.

"Jane, why are you seeing a gynecologist on Thursday?" The question seemed innocent, a non-sequitur that changed the subject, but I knew Dr. Gilfried, and there were no non-sequiturs with her.

"I need a follow up. From my hysterectomy," I clarified.

"And it's just a coincidence that you need this follow up as soon as you got back from your weekend at home, with your girlfriend?"

"You missed your calling. You should have been a detective," I said with a sly smile.

"And you're deflecting. Answer the question," she countered, completely serious.

"No, it's not a coincidence," I admitted.

"It says in your chart that Dr. Grossberg gave you clearance to resume sexual activity."

"She did."

"But…?" Dr. Gilfried waited.

"But what?" I asked.

"You tell me, and stop avoiding."

I sighed.

"Jane what else happened this weekend?" Dr. Gilfried tried another tactic.

"Maura and I came out to my mother, brothers, and my two partners from work."

"And did they take it well?"

"Everyone except my mother did. She was really shocked, but even she had come around by the end of the weekend. I think she's going to need time to get used to the shift in my relationship with Maura, but she's supportive of it."

"Where did you sleep this weekend? Did you sleep in your own room?"

"No. I slept with Maura."

Dr. Gilfried raised an eyebrow at me.

"Not like _that_," I was quick to argue.

"And why not?" She smiled, and I realized I'd fallen right into her trap.

"Because we're taking it slowly, remember?"

"I do recall you saying that. But clearly you felt comfortable enough to sleep in her bed with her," Dr. Gilfried remarked.

"Yes."

"And that was something you hadn't planned to do originally," she continued.

"Yes, but by the time we were ready for bed on Friday night, her bed was where I wanted to be."

"And you two were completely behaved and didn't touch each other at all," Dr. Gilfried said, a bit of snark in her tone, but her smile reassuring me she meant me no harm.

"No, we… did things," I admitted, smiling at the memory.

"Such as?"

"Really?" I asked, the smile from the memory gone and the irritation I was trying to subdue coming right through in my tone.

"Jane, why are you going to see the gynecologist on Thursday?"

"For the same reason that Maura and I didn't really consummate our relationship this weekend." There. I'd answered her, sort of.

"And that reason is?"

"We're taking things slowly."

"And?" Dr. Gilfried pressed.

"And that's it," I said, shaking my head.

"Don't you dare lie to me, Jane Rizzoli."

How did she do that? Was that something they taught in medical school? Was it some shared connection that everyone with a post-doctoral degree had? Maura could do exactly the same thing.

"Because I'm not ready," I sighed.

"Are you afraid of being intimate with another woman?"

"No, actually, I was able to please Maura with little effort," I said proudly.

"I thought you said you didn't consummate things this weekend," Dr. Gilfried asked, confused.

"Well, I did with her, I guess. She didn't with me."

"So it was her that didn't want to have sex?" Dr. Gilfried's confusion was growing.

"No…"

"Jane, use your words, please."

"I… brought Maura… to orgasm… _butwouldn'tlethertouchme_."

I shuddered, spitting the last of my words out in a rush. I think the only thing worse than not letting Maura touch me over the weekend was having to talk about it with someone other than Maura.

"In other words you wouldn't let her reciprocate," Dr. Gilfried said gently.

"Yes." I had my head buried in my hands.

"Why?"

"Because I look like a freak, Dr. Gilfried," I whispered.

"Pardon me?" she said, incredulous.

"I look terrible. I don't feel attractive. I don't want people to see me with my clothes on, let alone with them off!"

"Forgive me for the intrusion into your sexual proclivities, but how many people, exactly, were you having sex in front of?"

"What?!" I exclaimed.

"You said you didn't want people to see you with your clothes off," Dr. Gilfried said, hiding her smile as she looked down into my chart.

"No, I really mean just Maura. I'm covered in scars, I'm pale, I've lost most of my muscle mass. My hair is too short, and isn't growing back in fast enough for my liking. I don't feel attractive at all."

"And you don't think Maura finds you attractive?"

"I know she does. She tells me as much everyday, and goes out of her way to show me, too. I just don't _feel_ attractive, at all."

"How did Maura react to you not allowing her to reciprocate?"

"She was surprised. And a little hurt, I think."

"Did the two of you talk about it?"

"Yeah, we talked about it a lot, actually. We talked about a lot of things this weekend. She understands where I'm coming from, but she wouldn't let me touch her intimately again. She told me until I was ready to make this a mutual thing, she could wait," I recounted sadly. I'd wanted so much to make love to Maura once more before I came back to rehab.

"How did that make _you_ feel?"

"I felt bad. I _feel_ bad. I feel like I should just let her do all the things to me that I want to do to her. I know it'll be wonderful when it happens, but I just don't feel ready. I'm thankful she understands that, but I feel like her needs are going to go unsatisfied while I get my act together, and that makes me feel really guilty," I complained.

"Jane, she loves you, do you really think she's thinking of things in terms of her needs versus your own?"

"I don't think so, no." It would have been unlike Maura to do that.

"Don't you think she's worried about you?" Dr. Gilfried pressed on.

"I know she is. She told me as much this weekend. She even said I was depressed," I scoffed.

"You are. You are clinically depressed, Jane. That's why you're here," Dr. Gilfried said, shocking me a bit. For some reason, it seemed more official than when it came from Maura.

"Great," I said dejectedly. Another diagnosis to add to my growing list of diagnoses. Just what I needed.

"Jane, first of all, there's no shame in being clinically depressed. Secondly, a physical injury like yours almost always goes hand in hand with a diagnosis of depression. That's why we concentrate so hard on both your physical and your mental well-being here." Dr. Gilfried leaned over and actually squeezed my hand before she sat back and continued speaking quietly. "I'd like to prescribe you an antidepressant. Nothing major, but something that, once it has time to build up in your system, will help you with your mood."

I scowled at her. "I've never exactly been chipper, Doctor."

"I know. And I'm not prescribing something that will make you chipper. But maybe it will help you to restore some of your confidence. Why don't you give it a try? If you don't start seeing some improvement in a few weeks, we can always take you off of it."

I shook my head. "I don't know. I don't like the idea of it."

Dr. Gilfried tilted her head, studying me closely. "Jane, what have you got to lose by giving it a try?"

"Nothing. But that doesn't make me feel any better about it. What if it makes me tired or apathetic or fat? People can get fat on those things."

Now it was Dr. Gilfried's turn to scowl at me. "The pill doesn't make you fat, what you put in your mouth has the potential to make you fat. The rate at which you are exercising every day is pretty much a guarantee against that."

"You're not going to let me leave until I agree to try them, are you," I accused.

"No, you can leave when your appointment is over, but I am going to continue to strongly recommend that you try a course of them."

"I don't want them," I growled.

"Fine," Dr. Gilfried said, almost sweetly, unwilling to take up the challenge I just laid down.

"That's it? No words of wisdom or some sarcasm about how by not taking pills I'm sabotaging my own recovery and that all traces back to how I'm afraid to fail?"

"Why would I say any of those things? I'd just be repeating the point you just made yourself," Dr. Gilfried answered, and I groaned.

* * *

**A/N:** My job is sending me on a business trip this week. I'll be away for the Wednesday update, and just getting home for the Sunday update. If the updates are a little later than the usual 8pm posting times, please forgive me. I don't know what my evenings are going to be like this week. When I did this trip last year, my evenings were pretty busy and I was out late most nights. I'm just giving everyone a heads up, so that way if the updates are late you understand why. If I know I'm going to be late and I'm able to, I'll post a message to Tumblr/Twitter letting everyone know. I still plan to post on Wednesday and Sunday like usual, but there's no 8pm NY time guarantee this week. ;) Thanks for your patience.

**A/N #2:** Also, if any of you have Twitter and want to join us, we're turning Twitter orange in solidarity with Maura, and using the hashtag FreeMaura to try and get it trending in time for Tuesday's Killer in High Heels episode. There's a link to more details at the very top of my profile page, if you're interested in joining us. We've been "endorsed" by Twitter Jane (i.e. she retweeted our plea), and it seems to be taking off! Have some fun and join us, if you'd like. :)


	37. Chapter 37

**A/N: **Posting a bit early tonight as I won't be around during normal posting time. Sorry for any confusion.

* * *

I walked back to my room, leaning heavily against the railing along the wall, stunned at my own stupidity and consumed with my own thoughts. I'd walked into Dr. Gilfried's traps more than once during that session.

But more than that, I was angry at how right she was, about everything. Well, almost everything.

I didn't want to take an antidepressant and it wasn't because I was purposely sabotaging my recovery. I didn't like the idea of an antidepressant. I needed to get through this on my own, with the help of my family and Maura. If Dr. Gilfried thought otherwise, too bad.

I was pissed off. I was pissed off because she was right that I was depressed, and I hated that I was. But I was also pissed off at myself because she had been right about my fear of failing. She had been right on the money with it.

I was terrified of failing. But I wasn't sabotaging myself. I was working my ass off in physical therapy. I was grudgingly participating in my psychotherapy.

I was afraid of failing, but I wasn't setting out to fail. Somehow, I had to make that clear to everyone, without actually admitting to them that I was as afraid as I was.

I was wound up in my own thoughts when I got back to my room and found Maura waiting for me.

"Hey!" I said, surprised.

"Hi!" She smiled. "Are you all right?"

"Mmm," I said, even though I wasn't. But seeing Maura made everything better.

"Tough therapy session?"

"Yeah," I said, "I don't particularly enjoy that."

"You'd have a better time if you'd actually stop fighting me every step of the way," Dr. Gilfried said from behind me. "You forgot your crutches." She handed them to me with a smile as she walked in and I took them from her, surprised I'd left them behind and made it all the way back to my room without them.

"She has never really embraced therapy, despite my attempts to encourage her otherwise," Maura said with a smile at Dr. Gilfried.

"Maura, you remember Dr. Gilfried, and Dr. Gilfried, this is Maura Isles, as I'm sure you remember."

"Yes. Dr. Isles, it's lovely to see you again." Dr. Gilfried said, shaking Maura's hand.

I looked between Maura and Dr. Gilfried and started to worry. Maura was gearing up to say something and Dr. Gilfried looked like she was in no hurry to leave.

"Jane, is it okay if we discuss your progress with Dr. Isles?" Dr. Gilfried was closing the door to my room behind her.

"Um…" I looked at Maura, who looked all too eager to hear about my progress. "Okay?"

"Good," Dr. Gilfried said as she sat down on the guest chair.

I sat down on my bed, legs over the side, and Maura situated herself next to me, and took my hand. "Are you all right, Jane?"

"Um… I'm sure that Dr. Gilfried has other patients to see today."

"Nope, you were my last one." Her grin was genuine, but I could tell she knew I felt it was more sinister.

"Dr. Isles, Jane is doing really well," Dr. Gilfried started out. "She's surpassing all of her physical goals, and continues to impress both her physical therapist and Dr. Grossberg, her attending physician."

Maura looked at me and beamed, wrapping an arm around my waist and giving me a squeeze.

"Although Jane is still reluctant to participate in therapy with me, she does participate. And I realize that it's something she neither enjoys, nor actually wants to do. Yet she does it, and I'm impressed with her. For someone who has been through what she's been through, she's very strong. And I'm not just referring to her accident."

Dr. Gilfried smiled at me. "You've every right to be proud of yourself, Jane."

I didn't particularly feel that way, and I shrugged.

"While you're here, Dr. Isles, maybe we could go over a plan for when Jane is released to outpatient therapy. I feel that Jane needs some exercises in confidence building. Or to put it in Jane's own terms, badassness building."

"I agree," I heard Maura say. "I have concerns about her. She seems depressed."

"I'm sitting _right_ here," I muttered.

"Jane, do I have permission to talk about this with Dr. Isles?"

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, Maura doesn't miss a trick. I'm sure she knows everything you're about to tell her anyway. Talk about whatever you want." I rested my head in my hands. Then I waited. Maura squeezed me with the arm she still had wrapped around me.

"Clinically, Jane does seem depressed. I sense it stems as much from the issues she dealt with when you got together with your fiance as it does her accident and subsequent injuries. But this also isn't an uncommon side effect of a head injury. I recommended pharmacological therapy today in conjunction with her other therapies, but Jane is hesitant to try that," Dr. Gilfried said neutrally.

"Why?" Maura asked, turning to look at me, fixing her wide, hazel eyes on my face in confusion.

"Because I don't like the idea of taking a happy pill. I want to get better and work through this, but I don't want to start taking pills," I explained.

"They are not happy pills, Jane. If you have a chemical imbalance as a result of your head injury, they can help to restore the balance you need. There is no shame in taking them," Maura said gently.

"Look, I really don't want to take an antidepressant. Can I not try to get better without them? At least give me a chance to work through some of this stuff on my own?" I argued.

"No one can force you to take them, Jane. But I would recommend that you try them," Maura encouraged.

"I don't want them." I was starting to get testy.

"I think we'll let this go for now," Dr. Gilfried said, "But Dr. Isles, in a few weeks Jane is going to be released to outpatient therapy. At that time I'd like to see her start a few activities that will help her to gain some confidence back."

"Okay," Maura said.

"Jane, do you still own a firearm?" Dr. Gilfried asked.

"I turned in my service weapon when I left the BPD, and my NYPD service weapon got locked up every night. I do have a Glock that I own personally. It should be in storage with the rest of my belongings."

"Okay. When you are released to outpatient therapy, I want you to go to a firing range and get back into the swing of things. Also, provided that you're cleared for it medically, and I will run it by Dr. Grossberg to make sure, I want you to find an obstacle course of some kind to work out on."

"I can see if Cavanaugh will let me use the BPD's course. He said he wanted to see me anyway." These sounded like great ideas, I was fully on board with them.

"Good," Dr. Gilfried said. "Your goal when you start outpatient therapy is to look for tasks and activities that are similar to what you would normally do when you were working. The idea is to not only prepare you for going back to work, but also to build confidence."

"Does that mean I get to drag people in off the streets and interrogate them?" I asked hopefully.

"NO!" Dr. Gilfried and Maura responded simultaneously.

"Gosh, I was just kidding."

"No, you weren't," Maura said with a smile. "But joking aside, these are great ideas. And I think the police academy still does their tactical driving classes on weekends. We could sign up for one of those together. That would be fun."

"Can we take the class in your Mercedes?" I asked.

"No," Maura said firmly.

"Dammit."

Dr. Gilfried smiled at us. "Dr. Isles were you going to stay for dinner with Jane?"

"I had planned on it, yes."

"Good. Why don't you take Jane to the restaurant down the block, the burger place? And have her back here by eight o'clock. That's the shift change, and I'll just tell the nurses on duty to turn a blind eye."

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Yes, Jane. Eat and come back. No booze, no passing go, no collecting two hundred dollars. And don't ever tell me I don't do anything nice for you," Dr. Gilfried said with a grin.

I got up to get my coat and boots from the closet, remembering to use my crutches this time.

"I'm just going to run down and bring the car to the front entrance," Maura said quickly. "I'll be right back up."

When Maura walked out I turned to Dr. Gilfried. "Hey Doc?"

"Yes, Jane?"

"I'm not saying this because of what you did for me tonight, okay? But I want you to know that no matter how much I don't like therapy, I think you're a good person. Thank you."

She smiled at me. "You're welcome, Jane. See you tomorrow. Be careful out there and don't you dare get hurt."

"I won't. See you tomorrow."

I sat in the guest chair and laced up my boots. I pulled on my coat and grabbed my crutches again. I didn't particularly want to use them, but I didn't want to get Dr. Gilfried in trouble for letting me sneak out for a couple of hours. I made my way to the elevator, giving the nurses at their station a surreptitious glance. Dr. Gilfried was there, talking to them, and one of the nurses made a discreet shooing motion with her hand, and gave me a smile. I pressed the down button on the elevator, and made my escape.

Maura had just parked the car and was getting out to come and get me as I walked out the front doors to her.

"Why didn't you wait for me?"

"I wanted to get out before anyone changed their minds," I grinned.

Maura smiled and helped me into the car. When she got in and closed her door, I leaned over the center console and kissed her tenderly. "I know it's only been two days, but I've missed you."

"I missed you too," she said as she kissed me back, the kiss heating up quickly.

I cupped her cheek and kissed her a moment longer before I pulled away. We were in a parked car in front of the rehabilitation center. That wasn't the time or the place for anything more than what we were doing, but if we kept kissing, I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't try to take Maura then and there.

Maura looked at me understandingly, giving me one last peck on the lips before she put the car in gear and drove us down the road to the restaurant.

We walked in and were seated a little after five thirty. I looked at the menu and decided I wanted one of everything on it.

"This place has awesome food. Ma brought me a burger from here the first day I was allowed solid food."

"They have a salmon dish that's actually quite good," Maura remarked as she looked over her menu.

"You've been here before?"

"I met with Jeffrey Sheridan here to discuss your placement in his facility," Maura said quietly.

"Shit, Maura, we didn't have to come here then," I said, embarrassed for her and the way she surely had to put her pride aside to make the request she did.

"It's okay," she said, shrugging as she continued to peruse the menu.

"I cannot imagine what that meeting must have been like. You are far stronger than I ever will be."

"It was decidedly unpleasant. Although he lacks the penchant his brother has for rubbing salt in wounds, he can be quite defensive of his brother and his brother's feelings. I practically had to beg him to open up a bed for you. It was... mortifying." Maura looked up from her menu. "And it looks like we're going to get to relive it now."

I looked back over my shoulder toward the door, and watched as Jeffrey _and_ William Sheridan made their way in. And because our luck was so spectacular, the hostess sat them at the table directly across from us.

"What do you want to do, Maura? You wanna get out of here?" I asked quietly. Neither of them had noticed us yet.

"No. I will not run from them. We were here first and we're going to enjoy a good meal together," Maura said firmly.

"Yeah, but you don't have to see _him,_" I hissed out the side of my mouth, while I jerked my thumb toward the table across from us. "We can ask the waitress to move us," I suggested.

"That would just draw attention to us," Maura whispered back.

"So what do you want to do then?"

"Order our food and act normal?" Maura asked, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"That's it?" I asked.

"Yes," Maura hissed, burying her face back in the menu.

"Of all the restaurants in Boston-"

"Jane, Jeffrey works right down the block in the same facility you're staying in. It's not the least bit unusual that he would meet his brother here for dinner."

I looked up over my menu toward the table across from us to see Jeffrey and William staring right at us.

"Don't look now, Maur, but we've been spotted," I said with a groan.

"Maura?" William stood up and walked across the way to us, arms outstretched as if he expected a hug from Maura.

"William," Maura said, a tight smile on her face, clearly ignoring his stance and want for an embrace.

"How are you?" he asked awkwardly, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking back and forth on his heels.

"I'm well. And you?" Maura asked politely.

William shrugged. "Okay, I guess. I um, wow. It's been a long time since we've spoken," he said to no one in particular. "Are you uh, all recovered? From the baby, I mean."

I watched Maura's expression harden. She was either on the verge of tears or ready to tear William's heart out. I remembered what Maura had just said about William's skill at rubbing salt in people's wounds, and realized Maura probably wanted to both cry _and_ rip William's heart out.

I cleared my throat and sat up taller in my seat.

He looked over at me, almost as if he had forgotten I was there. His expression darkened. "Hi Jane." He tried to make himself sound friendly, but he failed miserably.

"Hi," I said.

"I heard about what happened to you. It's good to see you doing so well." He hunched over slightly, hands still in his pockets, looking down at his feet as he spoke to me. He sounded genuine, but his body language told me otherwise.

In the past it was always hard to not like William, because he was always so much like Maura, at least at first. He'd had that same awkward inability to have mundane conversations like Maura had in the beginning. Maura seemed to have outgrown that issue though, whereas William's problem seemed to be worsening with time.

I wanted to remember William as the sweet man that had swept Maura off her feet, but instead I remembered how it felt when he'd stolen Maura away from me, and how he'd treated Maura right after I left. It made it easier to do what I did next.

"Thank you," I said politely. "I am doing much better than I was." I looked over to Maura, who sat there stone faced. "We were actually just leaving," I said, standing up.

"What?" Maura asked.

"Yeah, um, I have to get back to the rehab," I said quietly as I put my coat on and handed Maura hers.

"Oh," William said quietly. "It was, uh, nice to see you, Maura. I was hoping we could meet up soon. Just to talk," he added quickly.

I wrapped my arm around Maura's waist. To anyone else, the gesture would have been a clear indication that Maura and I were together, but William's stunted social skills didn't pick up on that.

"I don't think that's a very good idea, William. I'm sorry, but we have to go. Take care," Maura said as she handed me my crutches and we walked out, giving the hostess an excuse about me not feeling well to explain our sudden departure.

"I'll call you," William said quickly to our backs as we walked out. I felt Maura stiffen next to me. I turned and gave him a dirty look, and he readily returned it, rage beginning to cover the contours of his face.

I quickened my pace as much as I could, and was relieved to see that William had sat back down with his brother as we passed the restaurant's windows. Jeffrey looked like he was trying to calm William down, his hand on William's forearm in a placating manner.

"Now what?" Maura asked when we got in the car.

"Are you all right?" I asked, surprised that Maura was so ready to just continue on with our evening after that.

"Yes. I think so," Maura's voice was shaky.

"Do you want to just go back to the rehab and stay there?" Neither one of us had been prepared for that encounter. I was upset by William's desire to be back in touch with Maura, and genuinely worried about how he had reacted to our brushoff.

"No. No, I'll be fine. Let's just get out of here and see if there's another restaurant around," Maura said, turning on the car and taking the wheel with steadier hands than mine would have been at that point.

We drove around for twenty minutes and couldn't find anything but fast food places. Maura was unusually quiet during the drive, politely turning down each fast food option as we passed it.

"Look, just drive through the McDonald's over there and we can eat in the car." I knew I would never be able to get Maura to actually go inside the McDonald's to eat. It was bad enough I was asking her for their food.

"Do you know how bad that food is for you? And if we go through the drive through I can't gauge the cleanliness of the restaurant," Maura argued.

"Live a little," I said, exasperated.

Maura sighed and pulled the car into the drive through line. I ordered two cheeseburgers and a large fries, along with a large Coke, and watched as Maura tried to control her tongue and not hold up the drive through line. Maura ordered a salad and a bottled water.

We got our food and pulled into the back of the parking lot. Maura left the car running for the heat, and we dug into our meals.

"Try not to get lettuce all over the car," I laughed as she tried to balance the container of salad on her lap between the seat and the steering wheel.

"Hold this." She shoved the salad container at me and pushed her seat back as far as it would go.

"That better?" I asked as she took her salad back.

"Yes," she said stiffly. I couldn't tell if she was still upset about the run in with William or if she was just aggravated by the food choice I had made for us.

I ate my first cheeseburger and watched her quietly. Crumpling up the wrapper, I tossed it into the bag our food came in and dug out my fries. "Want one?" I asked, holding the container out to her.

"Well, maybe just one," she said, taking a single fry out and popping it into her mouth. Just by her response, I could tell that she was starting to feel better.

I pulled another fry out and held it in front of her. "Want another one?"

Instead of taking the fry from me, she grabbed it with her mouth, taking my finger into her mouth with her.

"Hey!" I squealed, then realized what she was doing. "Oh." I pulled my finger out of her mouth slowly, but not before she'd had the chance to run her tongue around the tip of it in a circle. "Oh," I said again, blushing. I understood what that meant, and it sent a pleasant chill down my spine.

She went back to her salad without saying anything, but I could see her grinning from ear to ear.

"We should talk about Sara," Maura said suddenly.

"Right, because right after you did what you just did there, I want to talk about my female nurse," I deadpanned.

"She's married. And straight, Jane," Maura said pointedly.

"We were straight once too. And besides, my mother thinks I'm a marriage wrecker anyway," I said with a shrug.

"She doesn't think that," Maura said, scowling at me.

"She automatically assumed it!" I said with a laugh.

"Well, it's not true and that's not where I was heading with this conversation," Maura said, smiling despite herself.

I laughed. "I know. She has another opportunity. I think you should let her take it."

"Are you going to be okay with that?"

"Yeah. I can bathe myself now, and I can get to and from meals and therapy on my own. Someone in worse condition than me would be better off with her services," I said confidently.

Maura smiled at me. "Her new patient won't be ready for her until the week after next. Should we tell her that it'll be okay for her to go work for the new patient then?"

"Sure. I don't want to put her out of work before her next job is ready, but you're the one footing the bill for her services," I pointed out.

"I think it will work out for the best if we let her decide on her last day, but we'll tell her she can stay right up until she goes to work with her new patient if she chooses. How is that?" Maura asked, stealing another one of my fries.

"I think that's the perfect solution." I leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Maur, thank you. For hiring her, and getting me into that facility. I can't imagine how you must have felt to approach Jeffrey like that."

"It wasn't easy," Maura said, closing her eyes with a small sigh as she replayed the memory in her head. "Easier, perhaps, than trying to approach William, but still, it was not one of the easiest things I've done. I had to swallow a lot of pride, and he wasn't exactly happy to be meeting with me."

"You are so brave, Maura," I said with conviction. "I don't know anyone else in this world that would have done the things that you've done, especially after all you've been through, to get an estranged friend somewhere safe so she could heal. I am eternally grateful to you for that."

Maura turned toward me and gave me a tearful smile. "Not friend, Jane. I did that for the person I loved most in the world. And I'd do it over again, if I had to."

I leaned over and kissed her tenderly. She cupped my cheek and ran her thumb on my cheekbone as I moved back into my own seat. "I love you, Maura. You are my everything."

She gave me a sly grin as she reached over and took the last fries out of my container and popped them into her mouth. She finished chewing, watching me the entire time, before she finally said, "I love you too, beautiful girl".

I blushed and looked down. "Ma says the place has a long waiting list."

"It does," Maura acknowledged, bringing our conversation back on track. "However a contribution from the Isles Foundation seemed to have created an opening for you."

"_Maura_, you didn't bribe him, did you?" I asked, completely shocked.

"Of course not!"

"Think of the hives, Maura."

"Okay,_ technically_ the Isles Foundation made a donation and then a bed opened up," she said, eyes wide at the implication of bribing someone. Then, finally, she exhaled and acknowledged that it might really have been a bribe. She sighed. "It was one of many, many strings I had to pull for you. By that point, it no longer mattered how ethical it was. I needed to get you somewhere safe, with quality care. That was all that mattered."

"You're amazing," I said, watching her in admiration.

"I'd do anything I could for you, Jane."

"I know. You prove it every day. It's one of the millions of reasons why I love you. And I hope you know I'd do the same for you, too."

"You already have, many times."

"And I always will, Maura."

She smiled at me and leaned in for a kiss. Her lips trembled against mine, and I realized Maura had a lot of emotions to sort out at that moment.

"Seeing William threw you for a loop though, didn't it?" I asked gently, watching her as she got herself settled back fully into the driver's seat.

"Yeah," she said stiffly, staring down at her hands, unaware that she'd even used a colloquialism.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She looked back up at me quickly. "Yes. No. I don't know. I mean, there's not much to talk about. Seeing him was difficult but you got me out of there before we really had to interact much."

"Did you want to talk to him? I thought it was weird that he wanted to meet up with you. Didn't you?" I was suspicious of his motives, especially considering how angry he looked as we left.

"That _was_ strange. I haven't heard from or seen him since I notified his attorney of my miscarriage. He left a scathing voicemail not long after that, and then I never heard from him again," she paused, taking a deep breath. "I wonder what he wanted. I have no desire to speak to him though, so your ruse to get out of the restaurant was very well timed."

"I just didn't want him to hurt you, and I thought getting out of there was the right thing to do," I said quickly. I think Maura understood that my ploy to get us out of there hadn't stemmed from jealousy, but rather from a desire to protect Maura from any further hurt on William's behalf.

"No, I definitely didn't want to speak to him. I can't believe he was going to fight me for full custody of the baby. Even despite the breakup, I would have gladly shared custody with him. He told me I was unfit to be a mother," Maura spat out, shuddering.

"WHAT?!"

"He said I was cold and deceitful and no child should ever be left in my care," she said quietly, looking down at her hands.

"Take me back to that restaurant. I'll kill him! I'll wrap this crutch around his neck and twist it until his head pops off, and I'll shove my other crutch so far up his ass that it'll come back out of his neck where his head was," I fumed.

"He was hurt and lashing out," Maura said lamely.

"Don't defend him! There's no excuse for what he did to you. Maura, it's like he didn't even know you!"

"No," she argued quietly. "I think he _did_ know me. He knew me well enough to say exactly what would hurt me the most."

"It was still _wrong_, Maura. I was always incredibly jealous of him, and always told myself that I couldn't hate him because you loved him so much, but _now_ I hate him. And if I'm ever alone with him, he's not going to be able to get anybody else pregnant by the time I'm done with him!"

"He also accused me of causing my own miscarriage," Maura admitted, looking up at me with such hurt in her eyes.

I took her hands and held them between my own. "The man is a doctor. Surely he understands the concept of spontaneous abortion."

"I could see why he was suspicious," she replied, looking back down at our hands together. "Our marriage had been called off and he was fighting me for full custody before the baby was even born. I miscarried the day after he served me with papers from his attorney demanding full custody of the child once it was born. Still, I would have_ neve_r harmed the baby."

"I know that, Maura. And he should have known that too."

"It speaks volumes about his character. And I thought I knew him so well," Maura said sadly.

"Sometimes people don't turn out to be who we expect them to be," I said simply.

"At least with William, that was the case," Maura agreed, taking her hands from mine and grabbing the fork she'd been using to shift some of the lettuce around in her salad. I realized Maura was done talking about William and the baby for the time being, and I let it go. I reached into the bag and took out my second cheeseburger, and started to eat it slowly. The silence between us wasn't uncomfortable, but Maura was definitely trapped in her own thoughts.

I sipped at my soda and belched, just so I could take Maura's attention away from whatever was haunting her.

"Jane," she tried to say seriously, but I could hear the laugh in her voice.

"What?" I said innocently, burping once more.

"Really?" Maura asked, grinning.

"That's my line!" I said to her, and I knew that she was going to be okay.

"That's gross," she pointed out, gathering up our trash and putting it all back into the bag it originally came in.

"Hey, to know me is to love me. Burps 'n all," I said forcefully.

"Burps and all," Maura agreed as she got out of the car to toss out our garbage. She got back into the car and sniffed.

"It smells like fried foods in here now," she complained.

"I guess you'll have to air it out then," I said, dripping with sarcasm. "Just be happy it doesn't smell like my burp," I added with a grin, and she grimaced.

I looked at the clock. We still had almost an hour before I had to be back at the rehab. Maura yawned.

"You must be exhausted, Maura."

"I am," she admitted.

"Do you want to take me back and go home to sleep?"

"Nope," she said firmly.

"Do you want to take me back and sleep with me?" I asked hopefully, taking Maura's hand in my own again.

"As nice as that sounds, I really will need to go home tonight and sleep in my own bed. I'm sorry, Jane." Maura sounded so forlorn. I just wanted to curl up with her and hold her.

"You don't have to apologize for that. I know we still have an hour before I have to be back, but let's go back now. You can get me settled into bed, and then go home and go to sleep. I hate that you're this tired, and it scares me that you're driving around on so few hours of sleep," I said gently, making sure she knew I wasn't trying to get rid of her.

"Are you sure?" She looked at me sadly.

"Yeah. You're exhausted, Maura. I'm so glad you surprised me tonight though. And it was nice to get out of that place for a little while," I said cheerfully, trying to show her that it was okay for her to go home and rest.

"Dr. Gilfried was kind to suggest it," Maura said.

"Yes she was."

Maura drove us back to the rehabilitation center and walked me upstairs, even though I told her she didn't need to do that.

"I want to. I miss you. I have no idea what day I'll be able to come back and see you again this week, and it's upsetting me. So let me bring you back to your room," she argued, arm wrapped around my waist.

We took the elevator upstairs and Maura waited in the guest chair for me to get changed in the bathroom. By the time I came back out, she was fast asleep in the chair, her head leaning to the side in what looked like a very uncomfortable position.

"Baby, wake up," I whispered to her, leaning in close.

"Mmm," she mumbled.

"Maura, you can't sleep there like that. Get in the bed," I said, gently shaking her shoulder.

"I should go home," she said, still half asleep.

"You can't drive like this, Maur. You know you can't. Come on," I said, cupping one of her cheeks. Even half asleep, she nuzzled up against my touch.

She opened her eyes and got up reluctantly, moving over to sit on the side of the bed. I got up and closed the door to my room, then pulled a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt out of the closet for her. "Put these on."

She took them from me carefully, her movements sluggish and sloppy. I wondered how much sleep she'd gotten over the past two days. I was willing to bet the amount was none.

"How much sleep did you get last night?" I asked her.

"None," she said, confirming my suspicions.

"Maura! You didn't have to come here tonight if you didn't sleep last night. I love you, and I miss you terribly when you're not here, but it's dangerous for you to be out driving like this. You know that!" I scolded.

"I just wanted to see you," she said sleepily, as she fumbled with the buttons on her shirt.

"And I'm happy I got to spend the evening with you. I worry about you though. You're working really hard, and it's not easy for you to come all the way here and then go back out to Beacon Hill all the time."

"Mmm," Maura was actually falling asleep while she was getting undressed. It was like the tentacles of sleep didn't want to let her go once she had dozed off in the chair.

"Here, let me do that for you, okay?" I asked, pushing her hands gently away from the buttons of her shirt. Once I got the buttons open it was easy to get her shirt changed.

"Lie back, on the bed," I told her, and she swung her legs up and onto the bed. "I'm going to take your pants off." I realized how ridiculous I sounded.

"Mm, okay, but no hanky panky, Jane," Maura said, half asleep.

"No baby, not here, not tonight," I said with a grin.

I slid her slacks off of her and slid the yoga pants up to her hips. "Butt up," I ordered, and she complied so I could bring the pants up to her waist. I walked around the bed and pulled the covers down on my side.

"Roll over here, so I can pull the covers down." Maura rolled onto her side, and I walked back around the bed and pulled the covers down from where she had just been situated. I flicked off the lights, sent a text to Ma to tell her that Maura was staying with me, and to look in on Bass and Acantha. Then I set an alarm on my phone for four-thirty, so Maura could get up and go home to shower before work.

I crawled into bed with Maura, pulled the covers up around us, and spooned behind Maura. I didn't care what the people working at the rehab thought. That night I was going to sleep holding Maura in my arms, and if they didn't like it, I'd be sure to remind them of where their last giant donation came from.

"Good night, Maura. I love you."

Maura sighed in contentment, already fast asleep. To me it was the most beautiful sound in the world.


	38. Chapter 38

**A/N:** Sorry for the weird posting schedule this week. I was away on business all last week and this weekend I have family obligations that have prevented me from posting at my usual 8pm New York time schedule. At least I was still able to do the Wednesday/Sunday updates, even if they were earlier than normal. This coming week, I should be able to post at 8pm again. Thanks for bearing with me.

* * *

"I don't care if they think it's inappropriate, Maura. You're my girlfriend. We slept on the same bed together last night. It's not like we had sex in the rehab center!" I argued with her as she got changed back into the clothes she wore the night before.

"Jane, I just don't want them to tell me I can't come and spend the night here anymore. It's not appropriate for us to sleep crammed into a tiny hospital bed together like that. Especially all wrapped up in each other," she said rationally back to me.

"What was I supposed to do, let you drive home in your sleep?" I snapped back.

"No. But it would have been better to call up for a cot," Maura said gently.

"I wasn't sleeping on a cot last night," I huffed.

"No, but I would have."

Maura was right, of course, but I wasn't giving up on this argument. "You couldn't even put your pajamas on yourself. How was I going to get you into the cot, if they'd brought one up? Besides, I liked sleeping with you," I said, quieting down. "You said yourself you don't know when you're going to be able to come back this week. At least last night gave me something to hold me over until you can come back again," I said contritely.

Maura sighed, realizing it wasn't a conversation worth pursuing. What was done was done, and I knew that she knew it. Instead, she folded the clothes I had given her to wear the night before and placed them in the hamper in the corner of the room. She walked back over to where I was sitting on the bed and gave me a chaste kiss.

"Thank you for setting an alarm for me. You should go back to sleep. You need your rest too," she said quietly.

"I slept really well last night, wrapped up with you. I don't think I'll be able to sleep again without you." I hugged her to me and held on to her. "I wish you didn't have to go," I whispered against her lips as I kissed her once more.

"I wish I didn't have to either. Will you call me tomorrow and let me know that you've gotten to the hospital safely? And again when you're back here?"

"Sure," I said. It would be nice to have an excuse to call her, even if I didn't really need one.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" Maura offered again.

"No, but thank you. I managed to go to the gynecologist all by myself before my injury, I'm sure I'll manage now," I sassed.

Maura smiled, but her tone was serious. "You know that's not what I meant. I could go with you to make sure the doctor runs all of the appropriate tests and answers all of your questions."

"I know you could, and that's sweet of you. But thank you anyway. I am sure everything will be fine, and it would be better for me to talk to the doctor in private," I added.

"You know you can tell me anything, right Jane?" Maura looked a little disappointed. "I mean, I'm a doctor too."

"I do know that. And I'm not hiding anything from you. I told you how I felt and what was keeping me from being intimate. That was the honest truth, Maura," I said sweetly.

"Okay," she said, kissing me on the top of my head. "I'll talk to you later."

"Have a good day at work, Maur," I said with a tinge of sadness as she got ready to leave me.

"Have a good day in therapy. Work hard."

"I will. You work… less hard than you have been," I said with a grin.

"I'll try."

I knew she wouldn't give anything less than one hundred percent of her effort at work, no matter how tired she was, and that was what worried me.

"Be careful getting home, okay?"

"I will. Don't worry, Jane. Don't forget this is normal for me," she reminded me gently. There had been a time when that was normal for me too.

"I know, but I still worry. I love you, you know."

"I know," she beamed at me. "I love you, too." She blew me a kiss as she walked out.

I laid back in the bed, resigned to watching the hands on the clock tick closer to six, when I'd get up and start my day. There was no way that I wanted to stay in this place for four more weeks. Not with knowing that Maura was waiting for me at home.

I went off and did therapy with Derrick. He was neither impressed nor unimpressed with me. At least he didn't yell at me for not concentrating. I thought I did a good job, consciously working on my walk, but compliments from Derrick were always few and far between.

I walked back to my room after therapy to find Sara waiting for me. I'd decided to carry my crutches instead of using them. I balanced using the handrail along the wall. I figured if I got tired along the way, I could just use my crutches. I didn't need them though, and was proud of myself.

"Hey Jane," Sara said with a smile when I arrived back in my room.

"Hi Sara, how are you?"

"Good. I spoke to Dr. Isles this morning," she said.

"Oh. Did you two work out your schedule?" I asked, already sorry that Sara would be leaving.

"Yes. My last day with you will be a week from Friday. Are you okay with that?" she asked, gently.

"I'm going to miss your company, but I am okay with that," I said, giving her a smile.

"My new patient would benefit more from my services than you can right now. You're just doing too well to have a private nurse," she explained.

"I guess that's a good thing."

"It definitely is, Jane."

I decided to take a shower instead of a bath, and went off to lunch in the dining room. I'd noticed that since I was back from my weekend pass at home, that there were fewer patients here. I hadn't seen Amanda at all since I'd been back, and found out a few days later that Amanda had been discharged home. She had reached maximum medical improvement, one of the nurses told me. I realized that was medical speak for "she's not getting any better and there's nothing more we can do for her".

I really hoped they'd never say that about me.

I made my way back to Dr. Gilfried's office after lunch, dreading whatever emotionally turbulent topic she was going to make me talk about that day.

"Hi Jane."

"Hi," I said. "Thanks again for last night. It was so good to get out of here for a little while, even though I had just gotten back from my weekend pass."

"It's good to see you gaining more independence. Though I have to say the director wasn't pleased with me this morning. I didn't think I'd get caught by the director, of all people, letting a patient escape for a couple of hours," Dr. Gilfried said with a shrug.

"I'm sorry about that. He and his brother walked into the restaurant after we'd been seated," I said sheepishly.

"He said the two of you didn't stick around?" Dr. Gilfried questioned.

"No. Maura was engaged to his brother, and his brother was with him at the restaurant. Maura was visibly upset by their appearance, so we left and had McDonald's instead."

"Wait, William _Sheridan_ was Maura's fiance?" Dr. Gilfried asked, surprised.

"Yes. That William." I tried to keep the snarl out of my voice, but wasn't completely successful.

"Oh my," Dr. Gilfried said. "How on earth did you come to be here if she was engaged to_ that_ William?"

"Maura made a sizeable donation to the rehab and a bed magically opened up. In my defense, I had no idea what she was doing. Had I known, I would have asked to be placed elsewhere," I added quickly.

"You wouldn't receive the same level of care that you're getting here, elsewhere," Dr. Gilfried replied proudly.

"I know, but if it would have saved Maura even an ounce of hurt or embarrassment or even the money she donated, I would have gone elsewhere anyway."

"How did Maura handle seeing her ex?" Dr. Gilfried asked.

"She was surprised to see him. He was somewhat creepy. We didn't stick around long enough for them to converse. She told me later that he had accused her of causing her miscarriage. I was always jealous of the man, but never hated him because Maura clearly loved him a lot. Now though? Now if I'm ever left alone in a room with him, I'm going to personally make sure he is physically incapable of impregnating anyone else, ever again."

Dr. Gilfried smirked.

"What?" I asked.

"That right there? That's the Jane Rizzoli I've been waiting to see for almost a month now."

"Yeah, well, you don't mess with the people I love," I growled, my hands in fists on my lap.

"Good to know," Dr. Gilfried said with a smile. "So are you ready for your doctor's appointment tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Do you plan to discuss your intimacy issues with the doctor?" Dr. Gilfried asked me gently.

"Unfortunately yes," I grunted.

"There could be a physical reason behind some of this, Jane. I'm not saying this to bring up a sore subject again, but your feelings of unattractiveness and your lack of sex drive could all stem back to the chemical imbalance we talked about yesterday."

"Let's see what the gynecologist says tomorrow, okay?" I asked her, trying not to get my defenses up.

"Okay. I'd like to order some blood tests while you're there, is that all right?"

"Sure, they can do that while I have my MRI," I quipped.

"You can't draw blood during an MRI," Dr. Gilfried looked at me like I'd really lost my mind.

"I know. You doctors are all the same. Always so literal!" I joked. "Maura would have reacted exactly the same way," I said, when it was clear Dr. Gilfried was confused.

"Oh. I see," she smiled. "Well, we're going to run some tests and then maybe, based on the results, you'll reconsider the antidepressant?"

"We'll see. I'm not promising anything," I said. I really had no intention of taking the pills, and I'm sure Dr. Gilfried could tell that too, but she let it go and I was thankful. We spent the rest of the session talking about my plans for the immediate future, when I was released to outpatient therapy, and I was grateful that we didn't touch on anything that was too stressful. Dr. Gilfried seemed to try and pace herself, keeping to less sensitive subjects during sessions that immediately followed sessions that had been stressful. It took me a long time to realize that. She really wasn't the villain I had made her out to be in my head.

The following morning I got up at my usual time, showered, dressed, and waited for them to come and take me down to the ambulette. Since I was having bloodwork done, I had to fast, so I didn't go to the dining room for breakfast.

The ride over to Mass Gen was quick and the receptionist that greeted me in the outpatient clinic was friendly. They set me up with the phlebotomist first, who seemed to want to draw all of my blood. By the time she was finished, there were five vials with my name on them next to me. Apparently Dr. Grossberg had gotten in on the blood testing along with Dr. Gilfried. I didn't know whether to be nervous about all of these sudden concerns, or grateful that they were covering all of their bases.

From there I got taken down to an examination room, where I met with a gynecologist after I'd been given the customary paper-towel robe to wear. I sat there shivering, waiting for the doctor to come in and start the examination. Once the examination started, I wished I was still sitting there shivering.

"Sorry, Jane. Sometimes penetration is a little painful after a hysterectomy," the gynecologist said as she inserted the speculum gently, "but you're healing well." She continued with the internal exam and finally let me out of the stirrups. "I'd like to do an ultrasound, just to be sure of everything."

A nurse lead me from the examination room to the ultrasound room, where the ultrasound tech told me she needed me to drink twenty-four ounces of water before she could do the ultrasound. She explained that when the bladder is full, it makes it easier to see the other pelvic organs on the ultrasound.

I drank a few glasses of water and then had to stop, because it was making me feel too full. I also really had to go pee by the time the tech came back, so I was thinking my bladder was already pretty full by the time I had gotten down to the ultrasound room. The tech did the ultrasound and then, thankfully, let me go use the restroom before I went back to meet up with the doctor in her office.

"Everything looks good, Jane," the doctor reassured me. "Your internal exam was normal and your ultrasound results looked good."

"Thanks," I said, slightly relieved, but still nervous. "I um, I'm a little embarrassed, but I have a couple of questions."

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about. Ask me what you want to know," the doctor said professionally.

"Well, Dr. Grossberg, the doctor at the rehab facility, gave me a tentative okay to uh… you know." I was blushing so hard that I'm sure the doctor did know.

"Engage in sexual activity?" she asked.

"Yes. That."

"And?" she pressed.

"Well, the thing is, I just wanted to make sure I was all healed up and that it's okay for me to do that. You know, kinda like I'm ready for it. Physically."

"Do you feel ready for it?" the doctor asked me.

"No," I answered honestly. "I feel all weirded out by my own body. I mean, I've recently been in a situation where I really wanted to, you know, do it, and I just couldn't bring myself to because I feel so ugly and broken."

"A lot of women experience that after a hysterectomy, Jane. What you're going through is totally normal. Physically you're well enough to engage in sexual activity if you want to. Emotionally it may take some time. You and your partner are going to have to work on this together. Have you spoken to him about it?"

"Uh, her. Yes. I've spoken to her about it."

"Sorry, my mistake," the doctor smiled. "What did she say?"

"That we'll go at my pace and there's no rush, and she thinks I'm beautiful and that while she doesn't think I have anything to worry about, she'll wait until the time is right for me."

"You're very fortunate to have someone that understanding. My recommendation is to take things slowly. Do what you feel comfortable with. Over time, you'll feel more confident. It'll happen when you're ready. Physically you're good to go, though."

"That's good, at least," I said.

"The less you worry about it, the easier it will be," the doctor said.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Jane, when you're ready, you'll know it. Just because you're physically healed enough to take part in sex doesn't mean you're emotionally ready for it. With injuries like yours, sometimes it takes the emotional healing a little longer to catch up to the physical healing. Just take it one day at a time. Don't pressure yourself, and don't let anyone else pressure you."

"Thanks," I said, partially relieved by the doctor's advice, but still a bit frustrated at the idea that I still didn't feel ready.

I parted ways with the gynecologist and went back to the waiting room, before they brought me down to give me intravenous contrast and do my MRIs in the radiology department. By this point I was starving, but it was going to be a while before I could eat anything. I wished I had some cash on me to raid the vending machines I kept seeing in the waiting room. My stomach growled incessantly and was beginning to get embarrassing.

The MRI took a little over an hour, and the technician told me the radiologist would read the films and then forward the results to Dr. Grossberg. All that was left for me to do was sit around and wait for the ambulette to bring me back to the rehab center.

By the time I had gotten back I had missed both breakfast and lunch, and it was going to be at least another three hours until they started to serve dinner. I'd had to fast for my bloodwork, so needless to say I was absolutely famished. When I got back to my room though, that problem was already solved.

Maura had sent me a chocolate covered fruit basket. I sat down on the bed and pulled the card off of the basket itself.

_I thought you might be hungry after all that fasting and all those tests. Here's a snack that's good for you, and just as sweet as you are. See you soon. I love you._

I was so thankful to her. I was starving, and the snack was so perfectly Maura. I ripped open the cellophane covering the basket and took a bite out of a chocolate-covered pineapple. I moaned in delight, swallowing it quickly. I was far hungrier than I had imagined. I ate about half of the basket's contents. Most of the fruit wasn't chocolate covered, but I indulged myself and ate all the chocolate covered pieces first. Then, as if Maura were there and staring at me disapprovingly, I ate some of the regular fruits too, just to appease her.

Not wanting to spoil my dinner, I wrapped up the rest and put it on my bedside table for later. I flipped on the television in my room, resigned to spending a quiet, lonely Thursday afternoon with nothing to do. Sara was off, Maura was working, and Ma was out doing whatever she was doing. After a few boring minutes of some random daytime television game show, I yawned. Since I had the afternoon free, I thought a nap would be in order. I turned the television back off, and curled up on the bed. Going to the hospital and having all those exams and blood work had been exhausting. Since I had no therapy scheduled for the day, I didn't think it would be a bad thing to sleep the afternoon away. It had been a long time since I'd done that.

When I woke up a little while later though, I thought I'd woken up into a nightmare.

"Hello, Jane." William Sheridan sat in the guest chair, facing my bed. "I see you're making good use of your time here," he smirked.

* * *

**A/N:** *shiver* William Sheridan gives me the creeps... and I created the guy.


	39. Chapter 39

**A/N:** Wow, William's arrival sure did stir up some emotion! :) Let's see what he wants.

* * *

"What the hell are you doing here?" I snapped, the short hair at the base of my skull starting to stand up. William was socially awkward, but even he understood that sitting across from someone and staring them down while they slept was terrifying. The man wasn't dense, after all.

"I came to see my brother, and I thought that we could have a nice chat," he said, his voice saccharine sweet despite the scowl he was giving me. My heart had started pounding in my chest. Something was not right about this visit at all. William seemed to sense my discomfort and feed off of it as he continued speaking. "But when I got here, you were fast asleep, so I decided to wait."

"Really? You felt the need to see your brother twice in the same week?" I snarked. I could tell just by his appearance that he hadn't even told his brother he was coming to the rehab. William was there to see one person, and that person wasn't Jeffrey Sheridan.

William's sole response was to shrug in the seat, as if he didn't need to justify his presence in my room at the rehab. I looked around quickly, wondering just how long he had been there and what he might have gotten into while I was fast asleep. William continued to stare at me as I caught my bearings.

"You're creeping me out William," I said as I sat up and pushed myself further away from him on the bed. He remained seated in the guest chair, and though he didn't make a move toward me, I felt even more threatened.

"Good," he snarled, continuing to try and stare me down. I'd looked at homicide suspects that blinked more often than this guy did.

I sat up, and felt around on the bed for my cell phone. It was time to call someone to get this guy out of my room.

"Looking for this?" William asked, holding my phone up and waving it back and forth slightly, taunting me with it the way someone might taunt a dog with a treat that they had no intention of giving to the dog.

"Listen, I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but you give me that phone and you get the hell out of my room," I barked, hoping my raised voice would attract someone's attention. No such luck though. How was it that I could sneak off to go use the bathroom unattended and attract the attention of a nurse, but I could have what was quickly becoming a cantankerous argument in my room and no one stuck their head in to see what was wrong? A quick look at the clock on the wall told me it was time for people to switch from one therapy to another, or to go from therapy down to a follow up with Dr. Grossberg. The nurses would be busy moving patients back and forth. Of course they wouldn't be paying attention to me at that point. I suspected that William knew that, and that's why he chose that time of day to make his appearance. I wondered how he knew I didn't have therapy that day.

"Or what?" he asked, leering at me, swinging the nurse call button around on it's cord in circles next to the chair. "What are you going to do about it, Jane? Are you going to cry for your phone the same way you cried for Maura when she didn't want you?"

"I'll scream. I'll have every nurse, doctor, aide and therapist in here faster than you can blink," I said confidently, even though I knew hardly anyone able-bodied was on the floor and close to my room at that point. It was all I could do. I was in no shape to fight this guy off, I realized quickly, the thought terrifying me. I had no gun there, no weapons at all, really, and I could not run away.

"And what will you tell them? That the director's brother interrupted your nap? Do you have any idea how many people you jumped over to get into this bed, Jane? And you sit here and sleep all day? _On Maura's dime?_" he snapped, his face flushing red, eyes flashing in anger.

"I didn't have therapy today because I had testing at the hospital. I was just resting. I've been going to therapy regularly," I said, trying to calm him down.

"I'm sure you've been working really hard to impress Maura, right?" He stared right at me, the malice in his voice and in his expression sending chills down my spine. He wasn't calming down, he was simmering, just waiting to boil over in anger. I realized that there was probably nothing I could say or do that would calm him down at that point, and I wondered for a split second if this is what Maura had to deal with whenever William got like this around her. Where was the sweet, bumbling William that had swept Maura off her feet at that conference? Nobody saw this side of him in the beginning.

I tried to keep my tone neutral when I responded to him. The thought of provoking William was tempting, but I reminded myself that I had no means of defense and it looked like William wouldn't hesitate to try and hurt me somehow. "I've been working really hard to get better, William. Whether Maura finds that impressive or not isn't really your concern."

"Anything about Maura is my concern, Jane! Don't you know that? Or did you spend so much time pining away for her that you were blind to my feelings for her?" He was getting angrier by the second. I didn't know if I should let him blow up and cause a scene, or continue to try and defuse the situation. I thought about it for a second before I replied.

"I knew you loved her, William. That's why I left, remember?"

"You left because you were a selfish closet case, Jane!" William spat. "You knew Maura was never going to want to be with you! She never wanted you!"

"But she did want to be with me," I said simply, and it sent him flying into a rage.

"Right, that's why she came to find you in New York! Because she wanted to be with you sooooo much!"

"William, you know she didn't come to find me in New York, and you know the reasons why she didn't. What you seem to not remember is that_ you_ broke things off with_ her_," I reminded him.

"That was rather unfortunate. An ill-calculated threat I had to follow through on. I'd seen how torn up she was about you leaving, but I never really thought she'd chase after you that day. And back then, I really did need a break from her. Who would want to watch her cry over you constantly? That's all she did. It was like she didn't even see me. But you left, and things started to work back out in my favor. She was miserable, but I never let her forget I was around, and it was only a matter of time before I would have her begging me to take her back again. But then you had to go and get hurt, and she forgot about me again," he paused, having no idea just how incoherent he sounded, before he turned back to me and sneering.

"You're a sick bastard. The fact that you even gave Maura an ultimatum the day I left made you an asshole, but the fact that you had planned out the situation and made her choose makes you selfish and twisted. And rubbing salt in her emotional wounds wasn't the way to make her remember you were still around. It just alienated her even further and caused her so much pain. How _dare_ you hurt her like that?" I yelled.

William dropped his voice so low I had to lean in to hear him. "It was easy enough for you to hurt her that way, Jane. It was easy enough for you to walk away from her. I did the same thing. Maybe neither one of us was right, but don't you dare judge me for doing exactly the same thing you did. You hurt her too. And she hurt both of us, whether you are willing to admit that or not. This is not something simple, not something cut-and-dried."

All I could do was stare at him in shock. It was true, what he said. We'd both walked away from Maura. We'd both hurt her terribly. Maybe I wasn't so different from this psychopath after all.

But then I remembered something. I'd been trying to make things right with Maura for a month now. I apologized to her. Told her I loved her. I told Maura I'd be there for her and care for her the way she had been for me all along. Moreover, Maura had forgiven me. I made things right with her, or at least had been trying to.

William, on the other hand, was either incapable of understanding the difference between himself and I, or he simply refused to acknowledge it.

Maura's words from the car a few nights before rang in my ears. William had known Maura well enough to say exactly what would hurt Maura the most. Maybe that's what he was doing with me now. Maybe he knew me better than I knew him, and he was using it to his advantage. It was an advantage I couldn't give him. I refused to give it to him.

"I may have walked away from her, but my reason for doing so wasn't to hurt her. My reason for walking away was to give her an opportunity to be happy. To give us both the break we needed so she could make a life with you and I could start over fresh. I walked away so I wouldn't have to see what I couldn't have, William. You walked away because you knew it would devastate Maura. You went out of your way to hurt her."

William stood up and tossed the nurse call button as far from the bed as its cord would allow. He then threw my phone at me before walking over to the side of the bed to stand over me, his breath sour against my face. "It must kill you to be her second choice, doesn't it Jane? Does it make you ache to know that she chose me over you, and that you were second pickings?"

He didn't even seem to be following our conversation anymore, if you could call it a conversation. He was just sorting through his bag of tricks, looking for whatever he could say that would hurt me the most. William had begun to sweat, small beads of it running down the side of his face, where I could see his pulse throbbing. This man was unhinged, and a danger to everyone, primarily me in that moment. "Well?" he demanded, aggravated at my slow responses to his questioning.

"No, I've never actually felt that way because Maura has never made me feel like I was her second choice. And in case you haven't noticed, she's with me now, and this isn't a competition," I spat, no longer caring about defusing the situation. The situation was long since past the point of defusing.

William's face was beet red and his hands were clenched into fists. I could feel his furor washing over me in waves. I was treading on dangerous ground and wondering if this was the William that Maura had seen the day I left for New York.

"I wanted to talk to Maura last night, and you interfered with that. Just like you interfered with everything else that ever had to do with Maura and me," he growled. He didn't say it, but I could clearly feel the "_and you'll pay for that dearly,_" that he left unspoken.

I almost laughed. This guy was beyond reason. He really had lost his mind. Could he really think that Maura would have wanted anything to do with him at the restaurant the night before? "You sick bastard, she wants nothing to do with you! We were just there to have dinner. How could we know you would go there too? And Maura didn't seem too perturbed at the idea of leaving without you speaking to her. In fact, after we left, she told me how you treated her after your breakup and her miscarriage, and of how she wants nothing to do with you. I'm _glad_ you couldn't have the chance to hurt her again last night. You're a sick man, William, and _she doesn't want you_."

"Oh, she will," he said confidently, ready for one of his never-ending speeches. He stood up straighter, squaring his shoulders, as if he were getting ready to stand behind a podium and lecture. "See, I can give her everything you can't, Jane. I have the means to give Maura the life she truly deserves, and I plan to give it to her. I know what it's like to live in the lap of luxury, and I know what Maura is used to, and what she wants. Wealth, kids, and her every wish fulfilled," he boasted. "What can you give her? Aside from grief and mounting medical bills," he added.

"She doesn't want any of that _with you_," I retorted.

"And _you_ can't give her any of it, so she _can't_ have it with you. That means her choice is the person who can give her what she wants or the person who can't. It won't take her long to make up her mind, and we both know who she would choose," he said.

Did he really think Maura would want to choose between us? Did he really think that Maura would ever go back to him? How far out of touch with reality had William gotten in the last nine months?

"She already made her choice, William. Don't you know that? Don't you remember who she ran after the day I left? You made her choose, and she chose me. And now there's nothing left for her to choose. She's happy. She deserves to be happy and she is. You're nothing more than a sad part of her past, William."

"Don't be too sure of that, Jane."

"Don't be too sure of what?" I had no idea what he could be referring to, because it was pretty obvious to me that Maura would never want anything to do with this guy ever again. "It must make you sick that she prefers a crippled woman to you, doesn't it? Or are you still all upset about the fact that even when she was marrying you, she loved me _and she knew she loved me_? Which is it, Billy-boy? Because whatever it is that makes you into this kind of asshole, it's not what Maura's looking for in a life partner. She's never going to want you. You're sick. You need help. You're fucking delusional, bordering on psychopathic. And you're an _idiot_ to think that she would ever want to be with you after what you did to her."

"Oh, we'll see about that," William said calmly as he walked out of the room, as if we hadn't even argued at all.

I stared after him as he left, shocked to the point that I had almost wondered if what had just happened had really actually taken place. William had thrown down the gauntlet, challenging me to win Maura's affections.

But I knew Maura's affections rested with me. There wasn't a single doubt in my mind, even after William's mind games that afternoon. I wasn't worried about him winning Maura back, but I was worried about what lengths he would go to in order to win her back, and who or what he would try to destroy in the process. The thought sent a terrified shiver down my spine.

It took me several minutes to calm down enough to call Maura. I don't know what happened to William in the months between when he broke up with Maura and now, but he was clearly a twisted sonofabitch that bordered on dangerous. Maura needed to know about it. She needed to protect herself. I had to try three times before I could get the phone to dial Maura, that's how rattled I was.

"Jane?" Maura asked as she answered the phone. "Is everything okay? I expected you to call me earlier."

"No, listen. William was just here," I said, still rather breathless and shaking.

"At the hospital?" Maura asked, puzzled. "He works there, in the phlebotomy lab, remember? He's a hematopathologist. His department will handle your blood work in conjunction with the phlebotomy lab," Maura explained patiently.

"No, he was _here_, at the rehab. In my room! Staring at me and waiting for me to wake up. He had taken my phone and was doing something with it while he waited."

"What?" Maura gasped. "Why would he do that? That's just... I don't even know what that is. It's not right," Maura finally decided.

"He, he's like, _crazy_, Maura. I told him flat out that he was creeping me out and he said 'good'! He was up in my face, angry and boiling over with rage. I really think he's lost his mind! He was very threatening!"

"I'm calling security. I'll call you right back," Maura said quickly. "Use the nurse call button to get someone in there with you," she ordered.

"No, Maura, he left. Don't do that. He's gone." I decided not to tell her that the nurse call button was halfway across the room, where it had landed when William had tossed it away. That he would even think of taking away a means for me to ask for help was terrifying. William was cold and calculating, and not to be underestimated.

"What did he want?" Maura asked, now sounding just as scared as I had been.

I swallowed hard, trying to hide some of my fear. "You."


	40. Chapter 40

"Me?" Maura asked, "What could he possibly want from me?"

"No, Maura, he doesn't want something from you. He's out to win you over. He basically told me I had nothing to offer you and he had everything to offer you and he was going to show you that. Except he was all creepy about it. You need to request a security detail. He might even be on his way there now!"

"That's preposterous," Maura said, not quite believing me.

"Maura, you didn't see him. He was bordering on maniacal. He did everything but threaten you. I don't think you're safe. Not at least until we can figure out how much of what he said was an actual intention and how much of it was just talk."

"Jane, this is William we're talking about. This is the same guy that freaked out when one of Korsak's cats tried to sit on his lap," she pointed out.

Normally I would have to stifle a giggle at the memory of William screaming like a little girl. "Get this wild animal off of me!" he'd yelped, and Korsak had nearly wet his pants laughing at him and his fear of a harmless house pet. But at that moment, the only thing I felt was cold fear for Maura and anger at William for his twisted outburst.

"He was far from that guy just now, Maura. This is really serious," I urged her to understand.

"You're right," she agreed, startling me. "It is serious. Because I'm not the one in a vulnerable position right now. _You are_. You're in his brother's facility with no means of protecting yourself. I'm not the one who needs a security detail, Jane."

"He wants you though," I reminded her.

"And if what you told me is true, he won't hesitate to go through you to get to me. I'm calling security, Jane." I could hear Maura's heels clicking on the floor. At first I thought she was pacing with worry as we spoke, then I realized she was hurrying somewhere.

"Don't. He left. I'm more worried about you. If you won't call a security detail, at least have Frankie come and stay with you. Let Ma know, too. I don't want her home alone at your house until we can deal with this."

"I'll call Frankie to come stay with your mother, but there's no way I'm leaving you alone in that place. Not now. I'm on my way there, and we're going to sit down with their security staff and get this figured out."

"No, Maura, don't leave work! You're safer at the precinct than anywhere else!" I could hear Maura's heels clacking on the stairs in the precinct garage as I yelled. Already Maura had put herself in a vulnerable position by leaving the precinct and entering the parking garage unguarded.

"Well, if he's on his way here, wouldn't it be better if I'm not around when he shows up?" she asked logically.

"He could still be _here_, Maura," I said as I tried to reason with her. Didn't she understand how much danger she was in?

"Good, then I'll give him a piece of my mind," she growled as I heard her continue to walk.

"Maura, he's unhinged. Don't make the situation worse. We need to notify law enforcement about this. This is serious stuff!"

"We will, after I get there." I heard the soft beep of the alarm on Maura's Benz disengage, the door to the car open and then close a moment later, and then the ignition start in Maura's car as she spoke to me. "I'll be there in an hour. Sooner if I can make it."

"No, you drive safely, you hear me?" Secretly I was relieved she was on her way. If she was with me, I could keep an eye on her.

"I will. I'm going to call and have one of the nurses sit with you. I'll be there soon."

"Maura, I'm not afraid of him," I lied, but Maura couldn't hear it.

"Good. Then you can help me not to be afraid of him too," she said as I heard her put the car in gear. "I'll be there as soon as I can, Jane. Let me call the rehab."

Maura disconnected her call with me before I could respond, and soon there was a nurse at my door.

"Ms. Rizzoli, are you all right?"

"Yeah, just a little concerned," I replied, not looking up at her. I was looking at my phone and hoping Maura would call me back.

"Dr. Isles told me what happened. You should have called us. We could have called security or just asked him to leave," she admonished gently.

"He's the director's brother, would you have really called security on him?" I countered.

"My duty is the wellbeing of my patients, Ms. Rizzoli. If the director's brother is threatening one of my patients, I'll make sure that stops immediately," she said forcefully. "Mr. Sheridan himself wouldn't put up with that, whether it's his brother or not."

"That's reassuring," I said sarcastically. The nurse didn't seem to notice. She was too busy checking the room. She picked up the nurse call button that William had tossed away from the bed and brought it back to the nightstand.

We sat there together in an awkward silence for over an hour, the nurse pacing between the door and the window and me rubbing holes into my palms with my thumbs before Dr. Grossberg arrived.

"Jane, could you come with me, please?" Dr. Grossberg asked, her tone showing just how grave this situation was becoming.

I looked over to the nurse who had been waiting with me. She shrugged. No one had said not to go with Dr. Grossberg, but the two of us had clearly been waiting for Maura to show up. I thought about it though, and Dr. Grossberg had been my physician since I'd shown up at the rehab a month prior. There was no reason to distrust her. If she was going to harm me, she would have done it already. I trusted my gut and decided to go with her.

"Okay," I said, getting up to walk with Dr. Grossberg. "Where's Maura?" I asked.

"She's in with Dr. Gilfried and... well, you'll see," Dr. Grossberg said wearily.

We walked down to Dr. Gilfried's office, and she opened the door. Maura was there with Dr. Gilfried, a man in a security uniform, and Jeffrey Sheridan, and she was tearing into them. It's no wonder that she went directly there. She'd gone to give them a piece of her mind. This was the Maura I hadn't seen while I was in a coma. The Maura that went to any length to protect me. I wondered how many times she had been in a situation like this while I'd been injured. How many times had she stood there and screamed until people responded? What lengths had she gone to while I was so hurt, to make sure I got the care that I needed? I listened to her, chastising Jeffrey and berating the man in the security uniform. She had just turned toward Dr. Gilfried when I said her name, softly.

"Maura."

Maura stopped, dropping the finger she was using to point accusingly at Dr. Gilfried. I looked around, and everyone there seemed terrified of Maura. Secretly, I was proud of Maura's ability to raise hell. She wasn't always meek or awkward or goofy. When it mattered, Maura got the job done, _no matter what_.

"Jane," Maura said, relief washing over her features. She quickly crossed the room and pulled me toward her in a tight embrace. "I cannot believe what is going on here!" She stepped back to look me over carefully, cataloging my every feature and making sure I was safe and in one piece. "Are you all right?" she asked finally.

"Yeah, I'm more worried about you than anything else," I told her, clinging to her while everyone around us stopped and stared at Maura's sudden change in demeanor.

"Ms. Rizzoli, could you please tell me what happened?" Jeffrey asked, interrupting us nervously. Maura had struck some fear into him, it seemed. I looked over at him and grimaced slightly.

"Call me Jane," I said as I sat down on Dr. Gilfried's couch, pulling Maura down right next to me, my hand on her arm, trying to keep her calm. She did seem far calmer now that I was there. "And yeah, I'll tell you, but it's about your brother," I cautioned.

"I understand that, though I'm really quite surprised. That doesn't sound like William."

Maura actually growled beside me. I opened my mouth to protest, and he raised a hand to stop me. "But just because it doesn't sound like him doesn't mean it's not possible. Please, tell me what happened. I certainly can't have him wandering around here, threatening my patients."

I repeated the story for them calmly, and when I finished, they all started talking at once.

"Hey!" I yelled. "People! Calm down!"

They all stopped to look at me.

"First of all, the threat was more to Maura than it was to me. Second of all, we might be able to put a stop to this if Mr. Sheridan here has a frank talk with his brother."

"No, that's not acceptable," Maura said. "I want security stationed outside of Jane's door at all times."

"What? No, Maura!" I protested. Did she not understand that she was the one who needed protecting?

"Yes. And if that can't be arranged, I'm removing Jane from this facility right now, along with the endowment that I discussed with Jeffrey prior to her arrival," Maura threatened quietly, her voice unwavering.

"That won't be necessary," Jeffrey said, looking more concerned about the problems this could cause for his facility than he was with the loss of Maura's sizeable endowment to the facility. "Look, I don't know what's gotten into my brother, but I'll talk to him after he gets back from Chicago. He's got some kind of conference and was supposed to be getting on a plane at five o'clock tonight. I'll make sure that he actually went to the conference. We'll set up a security guard to be outside of Jane's door at all times until we can resolve this or Jane gets discharged, whichever comes first."

"When is William due back?" I asked.

"Tuesday night," Jeffrey answered. "In the interim, Jane is to have an escort to and from all therapies and meals." He said this to Dr. Grossberg and Dr. Gilfried.

"And _you_ are going to call Frankie and have him set up a security detail outside of _your_ house, Maura. I mean it," I looked at Maura sternly.

Maura looked torn.

"Dr. Isles, please do what Jane asks," Jeffrey said. "I don't know what this is with William, but until we can get to the bottom of it, it would be in your best interest."

"Maura if you don't call him, I will," I threatened.

"Jane this all seems like a bit much. I can take care of myself, and William is in Chicago until Tuesday," Maura tried to reason.

"We don't even know if he got on the plane, Maura! He could have just used that to give himself an alibi. My mother lives with you. It doesn't seem to me that he would hesitate to go through her to get to you, so if you won't do it for yourself, do it for her. Call. Frankie." I didn't care if I was seconds away from yelling. I'd yell if I had to, and if that didn't work, I'd be begging soon. I wouldn't stop until Maura was under protection of either my brother or one of the boys in blue that protected the city of Boston. Maura had to be protected at all costs.

"All right. I'll call Frankie," Maura acquiesced, getting up to leave the office and make the call.

"We've never had something like this happen here before, Jane," Jeffrey said to me as Maura walked away, as if that would make the situation all better.

"Well let's make sure it goes no further than it did today, shall we?" I responded, glaring at him. I sat up straighter and squared my shoulders, daring him to argue with me. This wasn't exactly Jeffrey's fault, but I didn't trust him. William was his brother after all, and it didn't take a detective to know where his loyalties would lie.

"Ms. Rizzoli, if you'll give me a list of names of approved visitors, we'll make sure nobody but the people you approve and our medical staff have access to your room," the head of security said suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.

"Okay."

Maura came back while I was giving the head of security a list of names.

"Frankie's going to come and spend the night tonight, but right now he's sending over some uniforms to sit outside the house. I also called your mother to make her aware of the situation."

"Is she flipping out?" I asked.

"By 'flipping out', do you mean worried and panicked?" Maura asked.

"Yes."

"Then yes, she's flipping out," she said, running a hand through her hair and exhaling.

"Great," I sighed. "Do you think you can calm her down?"

"If I can't, I'm sure Frankie can when he gets there tonight," Maura replied, trying to reassure me.

"Okay," I answered, not sure what else I could say or do to fix this situation.

"I'm going to make some calls and make sure William got on that plane," Jeffrey announced. "I will sit him down and have a good chat with him as soon as he is back in Boston. I'm giving you my word that if he's not himself, I will personally turn him over to the police. I don't know what's come over him, but his behavior is not acceptable and not becoming of a Sheridan. If you need anything else, please don't hesitate to get in touch," Jeffrey said as he walked out.

"I'm going to set up a security schedule," the head of security said. "Please make sure someone walks you back to your room."

"I'll do that," I said.

That left Maura and I with Dr. Grossberg and Dr. Gilfried.

"Are you all right, Jane?" Dr. Grossberg asked.

"Yeah, I'm just _freaked out_," I said with a shiver. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been so worried about Maura.

"Did he try to physically harm you in any way?" Dr. Grossberg asked.

"No. No, he just verbally made his intentions clear. He did not touch me." I shuddered at the memory of him bending down over me, sweating and full of rage.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Dr. Gilfried asked, concerned.

"There's not much to talk about. I'm worried about Maura. I'd rather be home with her so I can keep an eye on her. I don't think she's safe," I said as I took Maura's hand.

"I don't know if we can arrange for that, Jane. You still need therapy," Dr. Gilfried said gently.

"I know, but therapy could wait a few days. I would just feel better knowing Maura is protected."

"There's a police detail there though, right?" Dr. Gilfried asked.

"Yes. But it's not the same as being there myself."

"Jane, right now William is supposed to be boarding a plane for Chicago, which means he won't be anywhere near me for three days. And by the time he comes back, Jeffrey should be able to set him straight," Maura tried to reassure me. "That's three days of therapy you don't need to miss."

"Look, I don't mean to be alarmist, but we have no idea whether William actually got on that plane and we have no idea whether he'll stay in Chicago for the entire three days. We also have no idea whether Jeffrey will convince his brother to cut the crap. That is his brother, after all. I would think his loyalties would lie with his family, and less with the patients in this facility," I argued.

"We have a security guard outside of your door at all times Jane," Dr. Grossberg reminded me.

"And Frankie will be with me, until we can put a stop to all of this," Maura added.

"I don't know, Maura. I'd rather be there with you," I practically begged her.

"Let's just wait and see, okay? Try not to worry so much. Frankie is very capable, and there's a patrol officer right outside the house too." Maura sounded like she was reassuring herself as much as she was trying to reassure me.

I groaned in frustration. I knew Maura had a point, and that she was in good hands. It didn't stop me from worrying though.

"Jane." Dr. Grossberg interrupted my thoughts, obviously trying to change the subject. "While we're all here, I just thought I'd let you know that your imaging studies all came back clear. Your hardware is still in place and you have no ligament tears or other soft tissue injuries around your hip. Your pelvis is in great shape too."

"That's good news," I muttered unenthusiastically.

"Yes, it is. It means we'll be able to work on getting rid of your limp, because it's not due to a new injury, or misplaced or ill-fitting hardware. Your bloodwork is due back tomorrow and I'll have the results for you on Monday."

"How did the appointment with the gynecologist go?" Dr. Gilfried asked.

I blushed. "It was fine. She told me my physical exam and my ultrasound were both normal."

"Did she clear you for intercourse?" Dr. Grossberg asked.

I could feel Maura watching me intently. "Yes. She said to take things one day at a time and when I'm ready, it can happen."

"That's good," Maura said, taking my hand and squeezing it.

"Yes and no. It means that the problem I'm having is all in my head," I said.

"And we'll get through it, Jane," Maura said, placing a kiss on my cheek.

I watched Dr. Gilfried smile at me. "I'll let you know what the blood test results say about any chemical imbalances, Jane."

"Okay." I didn't like being potentially imbalanced. William, on the other hand, was imbalanced, and that was putting it lightly.

"Come on, I'll bring you back to your room," Maura said.

We said goodbye to the other two doctors and Maura walked with me back to my room. There was a security guard seated on a chair outside.

"Hi, I'm Christopher," He introduced himself.

"I'm Jane, and this is Maura," I said.

"I'll be here for the next couple of hours, and then I'll switch out with another guard," he said kindly.

"Okay." I really wasn't all that reassured.

"I checked your room before I started. Everything seems to be in order," he said confidently, waving us in.

"Thanks," I muttered, looking around from the doorway.

Maura and I walked into my room and sat down together on the bed. "I really don't like this, Maura."

"Jane, you'll be fine, I promise," Maura said, taking my hand and squeezing it.

"It's not me that I'm worried about, Maura. It's you. I don't want you going home alone. What if he's still here and he follows you?" The worry was evident in my voice. I'd never felt so powerless.

"Jane, I'm going to drive directly home, and I'm going to pull the car into the garage and close the door behind me. I will go right inside and sit with your mother until Frankie gets there after his shift," Maura promised, sounding almost fearless.

"Make sure you have a security guard walk you out, and make sure you check the backseat of your car," I demanded.

"Do you really think William knows how to break into a car?" Maura asked, starting to get exasperated.

"I don't know, Maura. I didn't even think he was capable of making threats like he did. I have no idea what he is capable of, and I don't want you getting hurt!"

"Jane," Maura said, wrapping her arms around me. "I don't want to keep bringing this up, but he's not out to hurt me. He wants me, but from what it sounds like, he wants to hurt _you_."

"Maybe it would be better if we found a different rehab for me to go to. I don't like that William is the director's brother," I countered.

"Jeffrey seemed to be quite upset about this development. I don't think he wants his rehab making the news, especially after Wilma's suicide earlier in the month. I think he'll keep a close eye on things," Maura said logically.

"Still, wouldn't it be better to go somewhere else? Why stay here and be in danger like this?" I tried to get Maura to see the logic in leaving, preferably to go home.

"Do you really want to go somewhere else, where you won't get the same level of care and you'll have to start over from square one?" Maura questioned, her logic always overruling my own.

"If it means not putting you in danger, and not giving William ways to show up, then yes," I argued forcefully.

"Jane, let's just give this a few days, okay? You're not in any danger right now, and neither am I," Maura said, trying to calm me.

"We don't know that for sure, Maura!"

"It's more likely that William went to his conference. He must know you wouldn't keep quiet about this. Do you really think he'd stick around?"

"Maura, that fucker was so crazy before, I wouldn't put anything past him."

"Watch your language," she said sternly.

"Stop deflecting," I growled. "He wants you back, Maura. And he's willing to go to any length to get you."

"He can't have me. I'm already taken," Maura said flippantly, in an effort to play down the situation.

"That's reassuring for me, but _he_ doesn't quite understand that."

"Did you really think I want anything to do with him? Or that he could possibly convince me to stop loving you?" Maura asked suddenly.

"No, not at all. He was right about me not being able to give you all the things you deserve though," I pointed out.

"That's William's way of finding your weaknesses and playing them against you. Don't let him do that. You give me everything I need, Jane."

"And you deserve more than just what you _need_," I whispered. "You're my everything, and you deserve a lot more than just what I have to offer you."

"I only want what _you_ have to offer. Nothing more, nothing less," she said as she leaned in to kiss me. "I just want you, Jane. I want a forever with you in it. What we have, where we go, the things that we do, none of that matters as much as having _you_ there to do it all does."

I sighed, but squeezed my arm around Maura's waist as I kissed her back. "I love you."

"I know," Maura said with a grin as she pressed back against my lips. "I love _you_."

"I know." And I did know. William's little mind trick didn't rob me of that fact.

"I should go, your mother is probably pacing a path into the carpets," Maura said with a sigh.

"Probably," I admitted. "Please be careful. Please?"

"Of course, Jane. Try not to worry."

"Call me as soon as you get home?" I hated how vulnerable I sounded, but I hated how vulnerable we both were at that moment even more.

"Absolutely," Maura said firmly.

She kissed me on the cheek and gave me a reassuring smile as she left. It took her almost an hour to get back to Beacon Hill, and I felt like I couldn't breathe the entire time. Frankie was already there by the time she arrived, so I felt better about her safety and Ma's safety. I could hear Ma worrying loudly in the background when Maura called to tell me that she had arrived home.

"I'm sorry, Maur. I hope she calms down soon. I wish I could be there to help."

"Just stay safe. Don't worry about us. Frankie is here and there's a patrol officer outside. Don't let the guard leave your room. I haven't heard from Jeffrey yet about whether William actually went to Chicago."

"I'll call Frost and see if he can get footage of William getting on the plane in the airport."

"Good idea," Maura said. "Call me back and let me know."

It felt good to have something to do, something productive that made me feel like I was keeping an eye on Maura even if I couldn't be there with her. I put a call through to Frost, and he was happy to make a few calls to contacts in Chicago. He told me he would call me back as soon as he had some information.

"Jane, a male matching William's description and using his boarding pass was seen boarding a flight to Chicago at five-twenty," Frost said when he called me back. "The flight is due to land in about forty minutes, and I've requested that someone review the gate security footage when the passengers disembark."

"Okay Frost, thank you."

"I'll call you back as soon as I know more."

"You're a lifesaver, Frost. Thank you."

"Stay safe, Jane."

I called Maura to let her know, and she passed the information on to Frankie while I was still on the phone.

Frost called me back about an hour later and told me he was emailing me footage of William getting off his plane in Chicago. I thanked him and then pulled up the video on my tablet computer. William was in fact getting off the plane at O'Hare airport, pulling a rolling carry on bag behind him and dialing on his cell phone. For the time being, everyone was safe. I thanked Frost again, then called Maura to let her know.

A few minutes later my cell phone rang, the number came up as blocked. I let it go to voicemail, too freaked out about the day's events to answer for an unknown number. I waited for the new voicemail notification to come up, and then dialed in. The message sent chills down my spine.

"_Jane. You really didn't think I'd just leave for Chicago and not say goodbye did you? I'm not you, after all. I don't run away from my problems. In fact, I plan to take care of one pa__rticular problem as soon as I come home. You were smart to send the police to Maura's house. But who will watch over you, Jane? Some guard on my brother's payroll? I'll see you soon."_

I shivered, trying to stop the bile in my stomach from making its way up into my throat. I dialed Frost back.

"Jane?" He asked into the phone.

"Frost, I'm forwarding you a voicemail. He's taken this thing to a whole new level. He knows Maura has a security detail. He knows what's going on at her house. He knows there's a guard outside my door here."

"Okay. I'll listen to it and call you right back," he said gravely.

Frost called back not five minutes later. "Korsak and I are on our way. Just stay put."

When they got to the rehab a little while later, I was ready to go home.

"How does he know, Frost? How does he know that Maura has a security detail?" I demanded.

"Let me see your phone, Jane."

I handed Frost my phone and he started playing with it.

"He put some malware on here. He put an app on here that's been recording your calls and texts. He knows Maura has a security detail because he listened to your calls. I figured as much when you told me that he had taken your phone while you were asleep."

"So what do I do now?" I asked.

"I'm going to take the phone back with me to BRIC and see what I can get off of it. Software like this is hard to remove, so it would be better to let me look at it and see what I can do. For now, use the house phone."

"If he bugged my cell phone, don't you think he bugged the room phone too? Maybe the room itself is bugged."

"I don't know if he's that sophisticated, but we can send a team in to do a sweep. Jane, I'm really concerned about your safety here," Frost said.

"Jane, is it possible for you to go stay with the Doc?" Korsak added.

"I'm not cleared for outpatient therapy and they have security outside my door," I said bitterly, repeating what Maura had said to me.

"Still, Jane, that was all set up before he sent you that message and he knows that they're here."

"Bringing me to Maura's house is just going to make it easier for William to get to both of us at the same time," I pointed out, even though it pained me to do so. I wanted to protect Maura, but I had to be sensible about the situation.

"That's true," Korask acknowledged. "One of us should stay here with her," Korsak said to Frost.

"I'll stay. You've been awake too long as it is," Frost said to Korsak. "But you get tomorrow night," he added.

"Fine with me," Korsak said. "Be safe, Janie. I'll see you tomorrow night."

"No, wait you guys, you don't have to do that. He's in Chicago. We know that. He's not coming back here tonight." I felt terrible putting them out.

"He could catch the very next flight back to Logan, Jane. He could be here in three hours. We have no idea what he's going to do. It's better to not risk it," Korsak said. "Just let Frost stay tonight, and tomorrow we'll worry about anything else that comes up."

"Okay. Fine. You're right. Thank you. Let me ask them to bring you up a cot," I said to Frost as we waved goodbye to Korask.

While we were waiting for the cot to come up, I used Frost's phone to call Maura and tell her what was going on. She was upset that my phone had been compromised, and even more upset that William had left me a threatening voicemail. Once I told her that Frost was staying with me, she calmed a bit.

"Frost doesn't think that William found my tablet computer, so I can still send you messages from there," I said. "And Frost is going to take my phone back to the precinct in the morning to see if he can get the malware off of it."

"Okay, Jane. If anything happens, have the nurses call me. Right away," Maura said worriedly.

"I will," I said to her calmly, trying to give her back a sense of safety I didn't feel for myself. "Just try to get some rest. We all need to be awake and alert for whenever William shows back up."

"You too, Jane. Be safe. I love you."

"I love you too, Maura. Good night," I said sadly as I disconnected.

I handed Frost back his phone and he got settled on the cot.

"G'night, partner," he said.

"G'night. Try to sleep, Frost. There's a guard outside the room, too."

"I will." He sounded as unconvinced as I felt. We were both wide awake.

We turned off the lights and crawled into our beds, but I don't think either one of us got a minute's worth of sleep that night.

* * *

**A/N:** I don't think I can thank CharlietheCAG enough for her infinite patience as a beta, especially with this chapter. Thank you, Charlie.


	41. Chapter 41

**A/N:** Update's a little early tonight. I did a lot of driving over the last two days and it has all caught up with me. I am predicting an early bedtime, so that means an early update for you all. It's also a super long update, which I hope you'll enjoy.

Thank you, CharlietheCAG for the edits on this chapter.

The final chapter breakdowns for this story have been done, and the story, including an epilogue, wraps up at chapter 58. The story itself has been completely written for months now, but I work with my SuperNinjaBeta CharlietheCAG on one chapter at a time for final edits, and this past weekend I pulled each chapter out separately so we could start editing the last ones. That means there's just about 2.5 more months left for this story. To those of you sticking around for the ride, you have my sincerest gratitude. Everything that ended up in this story wound up there for a reason, and I'm thrilled that you're sticking around to read it. Thank you so much for that!

And now, without further ado, chapter 41. ;)

* * *

I was completely exhausted the next morning, but so thankful that the night had been uneventful. I went off to do my physical therapy with Derrick, and Frost left to go home and then to work. Provided they weren't called to a scene, Korsak would come and stay the night with me, to wait and see if William came back before he was due. I felt terrible that they had to do this for me. I also felt lost without my phone. I was worried about Maura not having a way to get in touch with me.

Mostly due to my lack of sleep, my physical therapy session was a complete disaster. I was making mistakes that I hadn't made since my first week of therapy. Derrick had been informed of the situation and was aware of what was going on with William, so he didn't give me as hard of a time as he normally would.

"How much sleep did you get last night?" Derrick asked after I fell flat on my face for the fourth time. We were less than an hour into our session and I was bone-achingly exhausted already.

"None," I answered honestly. "I was too worried about Maura."

"Come on. Get up. I'll bring you back to your room. You're done for the day." Derrick's voice carried no bite at all, but I still felt like I was disappointing him.

"No, Derrick, please. I'm sorry. I know I'm frustrating you. I really am trying. I don't want to miss out on more therapy. Please, Derrick!"

"You're a danger to yourself in this condition. You're too tired to function and you're going to injure yourself if you keep falling down. You really need some rest. You can't stay awake forever. Come on, I'll walk you back. We'll pick this back up on Monday." He didn't sound mad at me at all, but I still felt awful about canceling our session.

"Please, Derrick." The last thing I wanted was to be alone in my room with nothing to do all day.

"It'll be all right, Detective. I won't hold it against you. We'll take you back to your room and you can get some sleep. You're in good hands here."

Derrick and I started walking back to my room, and I made it a point to carry my crutches instead of using them.

"You're really out to get hurt, aren't-"

Derrick couldn't finish his sentence. We'd walked back into my room, me a few disappointed steps ahead of Derrick, neither of us noticing the guard wasn't stationed outside. We looked around the room, and the phrase SHE'S MINE was written on the walls, on the comforter of the bed, on the closet doors, and on the bathroom mirror, in what looked like blood. The blood was still fresh, and it was dripping down from the bottom of each letter that was scrawled on the walls, making long streaks.

"Oh my god," I gasped.

"Jane, get out of that room!" Derrick bellowed from behind me.

I turned to look at Derrick, standing outside, and then we heard it. The closet door swung open and William Sheridan charged toward us, knife in hand.

I did the only thing I could. I flipped over one of my crutches so the cuff was down at the bottom, and swung it at William, golf club style. I hit him square in the chin with an uppercut that would make any fighter proud. William swung up, off of his feet, and landed flat on his back. Pieces of the plastic cuff on the end of the crutch shattered and scattered all around the room.

"Call the police!" Derrick was screaming behind me.

When I'd hit William, the knife had flown out of his hand and clattered to the floor next to him. Instinct kicked in and I jumped on William to subdue him, my pelvis and legs unused to the type of movement I needed to make, causing me to cry out in agony. I pinned William down, but he was stronger than me. He shot up, hitting me hard over the eye with a violent headbutt. I was knocked backward, off of him, and I momentarily saw stars, but stayed coherent enough to notice that William was already turning over to crawl over to the knife.

I shook myself, trying to catch my bearings and jumped back up. I could hear a commotion behind me as I dove onto William's back, pushing him back down, flat against the floor. Painfully, I swung one leg out and kicked the knife across the room. My pelvis was already in pain from my first jump on William, and I once again cried out in pain. That seemed to fuel William along.

William continued to struggle against me, pushing up with one arm while trying to reach for the knife with the other. I grabbed the arm that had been grabbing for the knife and pulled it up behind him at an unnatural angle, his hand now so close to the back of his head he could have touched it if he'd tried. The angle I held his arm in kept him wailing in pain and frustration. He screamed, and tried once again to push up with his left arm. I was now straddling his back and was finally able to kick his other arm out from under him, then grab it and pin it behind him.

William's face slammed into the linoleum flooring when I had yanked his arm out from under him, and I wasn't the least bit sorry when I heard his nose crack.

It felt like it had taken hours to subdue him, but in reality, it had taken just mere seconds.

"Derrick?" I yelled.

"I'm right here Detective," I heard from behind me. He sounded unsure of what he should do.

"Help me hold this piece of shit down until the cops get here," I said calmly.

"Yes ma'am," Derrick said, stepping around me and kneeling down to push against William's shoulders. "That was something," he said, grinning at me. "You all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I didn't feel fine, but I knew I would once the police arrived.

"He didn't get you with the knife, did he?" Derrick asked, looking me over as William mewled beneath us both.

"Nah, just with his head. He butted me hard, but I'm okay."

"We'll suture up that cut you've got as soon as the police get here," he said, looking me over as he pressed down harder on William's shoulders. Both of us were oblivious to William's cries of pain. "Damn Detective, I never thought I'd get to see you tackle a perp." Derrick was beaming at me, and it took me a moment to realize exactly what I'd done.

"You haven't seen anything yet, Derrick. This wuss?" I said, pressing his arms up even further behind his head and smirking at the reaction it got. "He was easier to take down than a house of cards."

Derrick laughed. "It's good to see you got your mojo back, Detective."

I scoffed, but on the inside, I was beaming.

Two uniforms responded to the scene first, and cuffed William. They'd called in detectives and a crime lab team, but I didn't get to stick around for the excitement.

Dr. Grossberg refused to let anyone take a statement from me until she could assess my head injury. I kept trying to tell her I took bump to the head and didn't have a serious head injury, and she kept saying something about me being more susceptible to a brain injury because of my pre-existing head injury. She had me wheeled down to the radiology room on a stretcher despite my very vocal protests.

Finally, after the CT scan came back clear, I was sutured up, given an ice pack and was sent up to Dr. Gilfried's office.

"Jane, are you all right?" she asked me, concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm glad we got that psycho. He can't hurt Maura now," I said forcefully.

"You mean _you_. _You_ caught that psycho, and he can't hurt_ you_." Dr. Gilfried smiled. "Derrick said all he did was help you hold him down until the police got there. He specifically used the term 'badass' to describe how you handled things."

"I need to go home, to see Maura," I said suddenly, jumping up from the couch and nearly losing my balance. What was left of my crutches were still in my room. "Did anyone even tell her?"

"I don't know," Dr. Gilfried said honestly. "But Jane, you can't-"

"No, Doc, listen. I am not spending another night in that room. I mean, right now it's a crime scene, so I can't even go back in it if I wanted to. But once it's cleaned up? I'm not staying in it. I'm not staying here. I'll come here, I'll do my therapy, I'll get better. But I'm not staying in this place another night. I'm not having another night like I had. I'm ready to go home." I wasn't taking no for an answer, and my tone reflected that.

"Jane," Dr. Gilfried sighed. "You are ready to go home. But that's not my decision to make."

"Well let's get the people in here who can make that decision! I'm not sticking around. So either we do this the right way, or I walk out of here AMA," I demanded.

"Jane, don't make threats. Let me call Dr. Grossberg, okay?" Dr. Gilfried said calmly.

"Fine. But let's do this. I'm not staying here today. Not this weekend either. Monday morning I'll be back for therapy. But I'm done living in this place. I need to go home. I need to be home so I can take care of Maura. So I can take care of my family."

"Okay," Dr. Gilfried said.

"I'm not afraid of this place," I said quickly. "I'm just done living here."

"I know, Jane," Dr. Gilfried said as she dialed Dr. Grossberg's extension.

It took a little while for Dr. Grossberg to come up. She was with another patient when Dr. Gilfried had reached her, but she promised to come up after she was done. I asked Dr. Gilfried if I could use her phone while we waited, I wanted to call Maura. I tried Maura's cell and got her voicemail. I tried her office phone, and her home phone, and got her voicemail too. I tried all three numbers again before giving up. Frustrated, I dialed my mother's number, and she picked right up.

"Ma? It's me," I rushed into the phone.

"Janie? Are you all right?" Ma sounded exhausted, but her concern for me was also evident.

"Yeah," I said, the exhaustion evident in my voice. "We got William. Everything is going to be okay now. Do you know where Maura is?" I asked her in a rush, before Dr. Grossberg got there.

"You got him? Is everything all right?"

"Yes, it's fine now. Where is Maura?" I asked again.

"She just left to go to a crime scene," Ma answered, the relief evident in her voice.

"I guess that's why she's not answering her phone?"

"I'm sure she's fine, Jane. Barry and Vince were with her. They came to pick her up. They wouldn't let anything happen to her."

"Okay. Ma, listen. I need you to come here, to the rehab. I know you're probably busy and exhausted from last night, but I need you," I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering.

"What happened, Jane?" Ma asked, instantly worried.

"I'll tell you when we're on the way home."

"Jane, we don't know if you can go home-" Dr. Gilfried said loudly behind me.

"Ma, just come and get me, please," I begged, ignoring the doctor behind me.

"I'm on my way," Ma promised.

"Ma?"

"Yeah Janie?"

"Come right up to Dr. Gilfried's office. Have a nurse or a security guard take you right to her office. Don't go anywhere else," I said sternly. "Just come right here to this office."

"Janie what happened? I thought you said they got William?" Ma asked, more worried than ever.

"Yeah, we got William. Just come and get me, Ma."

I hung up the phone and looked at Dr. Gilfried, standing up straight and looking at her much the same way I would look at a perp in an interrogation room. I was going for intimidating, and while I don't think I missed the mark, Dr. Gilfried remained very neutral.

"Listen, Doc, I have to get out of here. So When Dr. Grossberg comes up here, if she tries to keep me here, I'm walking out. It's nothing against you, or her. But right now, I can't be here."

"Okay, Jane. Take it easy. You're in a safe place, you understand that, right?" Dr. Gilfried eyed me, her worry starting to make its way through her calm facade.

I ignored her. "Nobody's going to try and stop me with a tranquilizer dart or something?"

"What? No. Of course not. Don't be ridiculous!" Dr. Gilfried said, stepping back around her desk to where I was standing. "Why don't you have a seat? Dr. Grossberg will be here any minute."

"Good," I said, starting to pace back and forth, ignoring the request that I sit down.

"But let's try to do it the right way. I'd rather see you discharged to outpatient therapy than have you walk out against medical advice. If you do that, you probably won't be able to finish your therapy here," Dr. Gilfried said rationally.

"I'm not making any promises," I said warily.

"I know, Jane," Dr. Gilfried comforted. "When Dr. Grossberg gets here, let me do the talking at first, okay? I'm on your side, Jane."

I looked over at Dr. Gilfried, and I believed her.

Dr. Grossberg came up, and looked at me expectantly, visibly upset that there was more drama happening in her facility, but it was Dr. Gilfried that started talking on my behalf.

"Jane wants to be discharged to outpatient therapy, today. And while our original plan was for her to be here as an inpatient through the next three weeks, Jane makes a compelling argument for her discharge today that I am constrained to agree with.

"She has regained complete independence with regard to her activities of daily living. She bathes, dresses herself, eats, and is ambulatory on her own.

"Psychologically, she's stable. She's encountered moments of severe stress and has handled them rather well. She has been home to her family and knows what to expect and what is expected of her.

"Physical and emotional well-being aside, Jane's room is now a crime scene. She cannot return to it until the police have processed it and released it, and Jane has expressed no desire to return to the room, even after it has been completely sanitized. The facility itself is at capacity, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find her another room here on such short notice.

"Although the decision to discharge her ultimately rests with you, my recommendation is to allow Jane to return home as she wishes, and continue her physical and psychological therapies on an outpatient basis starting on Monday."

Dr. Grossberg looked at me while she mulled over what Dr. Gilfried had told her. She seemed to take an inordinate amount of time. I stood there with my arms crossed, not even realizing I was standing without my crutches. It did not go unnoticed by Dr. Grossberg though.

"I suppose anyone who can tackle a knife-wielding sociopath and hold him down until the police arrive is physically capable of being discharged to outpatient therapy," she acknowledged quietly. "I have several conditions though."

I nodded at her.

"First, you will be back here at 8am on Monday morning ready for physical therapy. Your therapy schedule is not changed. You will have your usual course of physical therapy, you'll eat lunch in the dining room with the other residents, and then you'll have your usual session with Dr. Gilfried. You are not yet at a point where we can reduce the number of hours or days per week that you receive therapy. After your session with Dr. Gilfried each day, you can return home. I will not tolerate you being late or missing therapy sessions," Dr. Grossberg said sternly.

"Okay," I said.

"Next, no driving. Is someone home that can bring you back and forth here every day?"

"Yes, my mother is," I answered.

"Third, if I feel that this arrangement is not to your best benefit, I reserve the right to put you back in inpatient therapy."

"Okay," I agreed, but everyone in the room knew once I walked out those doors, I was never walking back in them as an inpatient.

"All right then. I have paperwork I have to process for this to happen. Call your family, Jane. Tell them you're coming home."

"Thank you." I smiled at her, leaving out telling her that my mother was already on her way.

Dr. Grossberg stepped out of the room and left me with Dr. Gilfried.

"Thank you," I said to her. "You didn't have to go to bat for me like that. I appreciate it."

"I only told her the truth. I think you've been ready for outpatient therapy since you came back from your weekend pass. It's one of the reasons why I let you sneak out for dinner the other night. I think you're ready."

"Thank you," I repeated. I was so grateful to her.

"Don't get lazy, Jane. Don't screw this up," Dr. Gilfried warned.

"You think I'm going to screw this up?" I asked, bewildered.

"No, I think you're going to try harder than you have up until this point to make it work. And I know it's going to work. I have faith in you. You asserted yourself today, more than once. Today alone you made more progress than you have in months, but that's a good thing."

A nurse knocked on the door before I could answer. "Dr. Gilfried? There's an Angela Rizzoli here?"

"Send her in," Dr. Gilfried responded.

The door opened and Ma came rushing in to me, pulling me into a tight hug before she started with her worrying.

"Oh Janie, what happened? There are police all over downstairs and there's a crime lab crew in your room!"

"I told you to come directly here, Ma!" I chastised.

"I had to walk down the hallway past your room to get here, Jane. And what happened to your forehead?" Ma asked, reaching a hand out to touch the sutures along my head. I gently pushed her hand away.

"I'm fine. And I'm coming home. For good. Well, as long as you can drive me to and from outpatient therapy every day," I said proudly.

"Today?" She asked me, shocked.

"Yes, today. Can we go home? I just want to go home. I haven't slept and suddenly I'm exhausted."

"Maura's going to be so upset, she wanted to have the house ready for you!" Ma worried.

"Ma, as long as the house still has four walls and a roof, it's ready for me. I just wanna go home. Let's go home," I said wearily.

We said our goodbyes to Dr. Gilfried and walked back toward the elevator.

"We need to get your coat and boots," Ma said as we approached my room.

"We can't. They're part of a crime scene now. Over the weekend, maybe you or Maura can drive me to the storage facility where the stuff from my apartment is and I'll get one of my old coats and boots. By Monday they'll probably clear the scene and I can pick up my things after therapy. For now my sneakers and this outfit will have to do," I said, trying to hurry her along.

"You're going to freeze in the car," Ma worried.

"It'll be fine, Ma. The heat still works in the car, doesn't it?"

"Yes, but take my coat anyway," Ma insisted, pulling her coat off.

"No, just leave it on. It's fine. I promise. Let's just go home before they change their minds, okay?"

We walked out to Maura's Prius, with Ma simultaneously trying to hold me up and take her jacket off to force it on me. We finally got to the car and Ma turned the heat on to full blast. As she drove us home, I told her the story of taking down William Sheridan.

"That's awful Jane," she said, her voice full of wonder.

"It's great, Ma. It gets him away from Maura and from me. Plus it was kinda nice to tackle somebody. Makes me think I haven't completely lost my touch."

"Of course you haven't lost your touch," Ma said, like it was obvious to everyone but me.

"I have a long way to go Ma," I warned.

"And you'll get there Jane," she reassured.

I grunted. I was so exhausted I couldn't even think of arguing with my mother. I just wanted to get home and sleep. In Maura's bed. No, in our bed.

Ma pulled up in Maura's driveway and let us into Maura's house. It was shortly before noon. The security detail that had been assigned to Maura and my mother had been called off when William was taken into custody.

"Do you want me to make us something quick for lunch?" Ma offered.

"Let's make something quick together. Then I need to sleep for a little while. I didn't sleep at all last night."

"None of us did," Ma replied.

"I really wanted to be here, Ma. I'm sorry I wasn't," I said sadly.

"Don't be silly, Jane. Frankie was here and there was a police officer right outside. We were all worried about you. I'm glad you weren't more hurt than you were."

"It's just a cut, my face will be fine," I said bravely. What was one more scar at that point anyway?

We set about making grilled cheese sandwiches.

"Can I ask you a question?" Ma asked suddenly while we were eating.

"Of course," I said with my mouth full. Ma gave me a look, but then smiled.

"I don't want to sound insensitive, but I just want to ask, okay?"

I looked at my mother warily. "Okay…"

"Are you and Maura gonna have kids?" she blurted out.

I laughed. I knew my mother wouldn't be able to stay away from the grandbabies thing for long.

"Why are you laughing?" she demanded.

"What, Ma, TJ isn't enough for you?" I said with a smile.

"Well, you know I'd be happier with more."

"I know Ma," I said seriously.

"So are you?" she pressed.

"We talked about this when I was home last weekend. Kids are more sensitive of a subject for Maura than they are for me. And the way we left it was, maybe. Maybe someday we'd like to try. Right now though, she and I have a lot of things to work out. It's weird, Ma. I mean, she still feels like the same Maura she was before William showed up. And she is, really. But we have a lot of lost time to make up for, and a lot of changes went on in our lives during that time that we need to understand and work through. Things are great between the two of us right now, but I feel like this is some sort of honeymoon phase and that once it's over, she might realize I'm not the person she fell in love with."

"I think she sees who you are, and she loves you no matter what," Ma said sincerely.

"I think so too, Ma. But she deserves someone that can support her in the lifestyle she's used to living, and she deserves someone who can protect her. I can't do either of those things."

"Maybe she does," Ma said with a shrug. "You might not be loaded with money, Janie, but you're rich in other ways, ways that she sees. And I think this morning proves that you can still protect her."

"It's not the same as it was though," I disagreed.

"No, it's not. People change. Circumstances change. People who love each other adapt to those changes and move on. The two of you are more than capable of doing that. You've already started doing that."

"Can I ask you a question now?" I asked.

"Go ahead, Jane."

"How come you and Pop didn't adapt and move on?"

Ma sighed. "We both changed. And we both moved on. Except for us, we moved in two different directions."

"What if Maura and I move in two different directions?" I worried.

"You won't. You spent years running_ from_ one another. You've spent the months since your injury running _to_ one another. The only places you two are going, you are going together."

"But how do you know?" She seemed so sure, and all I wanted was to feel as sure about it as she did.

"Because I've never seen two people search each other out when they enter a room quite like the two of you do. Even while Maura was with William, she'd come into the house, and if William and you were here, she'd look for you first. I've never seen two people as protective of one another as the two of you are. I've never seen two people that know what the other is thinking quite the way you two do.

"The first time you brought Maura home, I thought for sure you were going to tell me the two of you were dating. I think the two of you were dating and you didn't even know it. Do you know how many times I walked in here and found the two of you fast asleep on the couch in each other's arms? How many best friends do you think actually do that? Jane, you two were made for each other."

"You really think that?" I was happy that she saw that, but I didn't quite believe her.

"Of course I do."

"But why were you so upset when we told you?" I asked gently, not looking to start a fight with her. Ma seemed to sense that.

"I think that, like the two of you, I had resigned myself to the fact that you two were going to just keep chasing after men instead of each other. So when you finally both woke up and went for each other, it was as much of a shock to me as it was the first day you brought Maura home. I'm sorry for the way I reacted. I really am."

"It could have been so much worse," I said vehemently. "You could have disowned me."

"I would never do that," Ma said with a scowl, insulted that I'd say such a thing.

"Really? I spent six months in New York that felt like I'd been disowned," I spat back.

"I still called you. I still made sure you were okay," Ma pushed back.

"It wasn't the same, Ma."

"You ran from us, Jane. You hurt Maura. I understand now, why you did it, but that doesn't make what you did okay," she argued.

"And look at the price I paid for it," I shot back bitterly.

"You're right. I'm sorry. But she paid a price too. Don't forget that. We all did," Ma said, holding up a hand to try and calm us both down.

"I know. It's something I have to live with every day for the rest of my life," I said trying to make my tone gentle.

"Remember what I said, Jane. Circumstances change. Adapt and move on. Just make sure that this time, every choice you make, you make it with Maura in mind. She already does that for you."

"I will," I said solemnly.

We cleaned up from lunch and Ma went back to the guesthouse to sleep for a little while. She had looked as exhausted as I felt when she left, and I knew she was probably going to sleep for a few hours. I hoped to get a few hours of sleep myself, but my conversation with Ma had left me with a lot on my mind. As tired as I was, I knew I wasn't going to be able to fall right to sleep.

Instead, I slowly made my way upstairs where I showered and changed my clothes. Then I made my way back downstairs, one tremulous step at a time. I had destroyed one of my crutches when I swung it at William, and in the confusion of it all, and in my rush to get out of that rehabilitation center, no one had gotten me a new set. I didn't want them anyway, but going up and down the stairs by myself with no one else in the house with me was more frightening than I wanted to admit. I didn't even want to think of what could happen to me if my pelvis gave out on the way down. With me as exhausted as I was, and with the way I had been falling during my brief therapy session that morning, it was quite possible that my pelvis could give out. I held onto the banister and actually sat down at one point about halfway down, just to give myself a rest.

Once I made it to the bottom landing, I went over to the couch and turned on the television, silently thankful I had made it back down again and happy to be able to try and unwind a bit.

A few minutes later I heard the garage door opening, and a car door slam.

"JANE?" Maura sounded absolutely panicked as she came running into the living room, dropping her expensive purse on the floor near the door without so much as a second thought. "Oh my god, there you are. WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME? What did he do to you? Let me see your face." She was practically on top of me, her hands moving over my face both to check it for injury and to reassure herself that I was really there.

"It's okay, Maura. Everything's okay," I said to her calmly.

"You can't have a head injury, it could make your existing injury worse! Why aren't you icing that laceration?" she cried.

"They did a CT scan at the rehab. It's fine. Really, everything is fine. Come here."

Maura stood over me, half crying, half yelling. "Sara called and said your room was a crime scene! And that you were nowhere to be found! Nobody at the scene would tell her anything so she called me! And I didn't know! I didn't know if he'd gotten you! Why didn't you call me, Jane? WHY?"

"I did, Maura. I called you three times, from the rehab. I tried your cell, the house and your office. You didn't pick up. Ma said that you were working, so I stopped trying to call from the rehab. And Frost has my phone, remember? I'm sorry that in all of the confusion I forgot to get in touch with Sara. We should call her, let her know I'm okay."

"When I got to the rehab they told me what happened, and I told Sara. She's okay now. Since you've been discharged to outpatient therapy, she's going to start working with her new patient sooner rather than later. I told her I'd call her once I was sure you were all right, and we'd make plans to have dinner sometime soon, so you could say goodbye to her."

Maura paused, and I was silently grateful that she would think of something like that in the midst of all of the panic and confusion. I would like to have the chance to thank Sara for being there for me. It really would be sad if I didn't have the chance to say goodbye to her.

Maura interrupted my thoughts. "Have you really been discharged?"

"To outpatient therapy, yes. There was no way I was spending another night there. I told them if they didn't discharge me to outpatient therapy, I was leaving AMA."

"I saw what he did to your room. I would have been furious with you if you had left AMA, but I don't think I would have allowed you to stay there any longer. They were supposed to have a guard on duty outside of your room. They assured me that they would." Maura's tone told me she was sorry that they didn't.

"I was lucky Derrick walked me back. In the guard's defense though, I wasn't due back for at least another hour. Derrick called off our session because I hadn't slept and I kept falling down. He thought I was going to hurt myself. If he hadn't been there, I don't know what would have happened." I shuddered at the possibility.

"From what I heard, you took care of things all by yourself." Maura looked at me proudly. "You really hit him with one of your crutches and wrestled him to the ground?"

I shrugged, unwilling to acknowledge what Maura already knew, lest she try to make a bigger deal out of it. "He can't try to hurt you anymore, Maura. He's going to go away for a long time. I'm going to make sure of it."

"He tried to hurt_ you_, though. He tried to kill _you_. How are you so calm about all of this?" Maura asked in awe.

"He did all of that to hurt_ you_. He tried to stab me to hurt you, Maura. I'm more angry with him than I am scared. The danger is over. You're safe. He learned not to mess with the people I love. "

"But you don't know the half of what he did, Jane. I was there, with the crime scene techs after Sara called. The reddish brown stains all over the walls, the bed, and the mirror, were made with_ your_ blood. Apparently he managed to get the vials that were drawn while you were at the hospital after they were tested. He used his own keycard to get into the phlebotomy lab and steal them before they were disposed of. As a hematopathologist, it wouldn't be seen as unusual that he was down in that lab. The crime lab found the empty vials labeled with your name in the room. He wanted to hurt you, but he wanted to send me a message too. He was spreading your blood. He wanted to spill your blood." I watched Maura shudder, and pulled her to me, even though she remained standing above me while I sat on the couch. She was too agitated to sit down.

"While he was hiding in your closet, he shredded your winter coat with the knife he'd been carrying."

It was my turn to shudder.

"He found your stack of photos in your nightstand and shredded them. Except the one of us together at the dirty robber. He smeared your blood all over you in that photograph and left what appeared to be a semen deposit on the part of the photograph that had me in it. The lab results are still pending for that."

I retched, absolutely revolted, and Maura saw it before she continued speaking.

"There's no doubt in my mind he was there to kill you, Jane."

"But I stopped him. It-" I paused, trying to choose my words carefully. "It felt good to stop him. I felt like I'd taken control of a situation. For so long, I've felt like everything going on around me has been out of my control. I put a stop to that, today."

"Today wasn't the first time you did that, Jane." Maura looked at me pointedly. "One of the reasons I was so grateful that you got us out of the restaurant the other night was because I'd seen him tense up when he spoke to you. I heard what he was saying, and the sincerity in his voice when he wished you well, but his body sent a different message. You saw it too. That's why you got us out of there. You took control of the situation then, and did what was right for us both."

"That was something so simple though Maura," I said, shaking my head. All I did was decide it was time to leave that night at the restaurant.

"No, it wasn't that simple. The William that we saw at the restaurant that night was the William I was going to marry. Saying one thing but letting his non-verbal cues say another. I could swear that he wasn't like that when we first met. He really was that innocent and that sweet, but I think the more he saw us together, the more jealous he got, and I did nothing about it. I just let it be. But you saw what was going on and made a decision to get us out of there, Jane."

I shook my head gently, still disagreeing with her.

"That William we saw at the restaurant the other night was the precursor to the William that showed up the day you were leaving for New York," Maura continued, her voice low and sad. "The William that held me back and tried to keep me from running after you. The William that tried to take my baby away from me before it was even born."

Maura shuddered, holding in her tears. "He is a sick, controlling man who hides behind an awkward, gentle persona. And I almost married him."

"You didn't know, Maura," I tried to console her.

"I thought after Dennis Rockmond, I was more careful. I paid attention to the quirks and the signs. But William played me for the fool that I was."

"Maura, you fell in love with him. You _genuinely_ loved him and I _know_ that he hid all of this from you. Don't you think I would have said something when you introduced me to him for the first time? You can't blame yourself for forgiving his temper if his temper never flared like it did until the day I left," I said, pulling her toward me once more. She still remained standing though, tethered to my hand but still trying to pace back and forth in a more restricted space.

"I just keep thinking that if I had tried harder to keep you from leaving, or if I had tried to let you know I had feelings for you before I had even met William, none of this would have ever happened. You would have never left. You would have never gotten hurt. We lost so much time together, Jane. And I feel so guilty for letting you go," Maura began crying, the tears she'd been holding back finally spilling over.

I took her hand and pulled her toward me more forcefully than before. "Come here. It's okay. Everything with William is over now. It's just you and me, and we're okay."

"But it should never have happened, Jane."

"You said it yourself, Maura. We can't go back. What's done is done. We can't change the past. But we can build our own future. We can learn from our mistakes and not make them again. I don't ever want there to be a day when you don't know how much I love you."

"I was so scared today, Jane. I was so scared that William took you away from me permanently. I was just as scared as I was the day I heard you were involved in that derailment and they thought you were among the dead passengers."

I pulled her down into my lap gently, and she didn't try to stay standing. I inhaled a little sharply at the sudden pressure there, but it didn't hurt. Maura's skirt had ridden up her thighs when she straddled me. Neither of us cared, and I stared at her, taking her in.

"Jane?" she asked, unsure of where I wanted this to go.

"Shh, it's okay," I said as I leaned in to kiss her. "Everything's okay, Maura." I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly as she settled in my lap. "Everything's okay. We're okay. He can't hurt you anymore, and we have each other," I whispered again before capturing her lips with my own.

"You're really home for good?" Maura asked against my lips between kisses.

"For as long as you'll have me," I promised.

"Is forever good for you?" Maura asked sweetly.

"Even forever isn't long enough, Maur."

She pinned me against the back of the couch as she kissed me again, and I ran my hands down her sides and under her sweater. She gasped at the feeling of my hands on her back, and pulled away from my lips long enough to reach down to the hem of my t-shirt. She stopped and looked down at me, and I gave her a small nod as I removed my hands from under her shirt. I raised my arms to let her pull my shirt off, and did the same with her sweater. She stared down at me, her eyes taking in every inch of my skin. For the first time, I didn't feel self-conscious under her scrutiny.

She leaned back down to kiss me again, and I reached around her to unclasp her bra. She sat back and let me pull her bra down, off of her shoulders and away from her body. I reached a hand out to touch her, and grinned as one of her nipples hardened under my touch. She leaned in and started kissing my jawline, tracing a path to my earlobe and giving it a nibble.

"I love you so much, Jane," she whispered against me as her hands found their way behind my back and unclasped my bra. "So, so much."

She eased my bra off of my shoulders and pulled it away, dropping it behind the couch, presumably where my t-shirt had landed earlier. She leaned down and took one of my nipples in her mouth, sucking on it gently before releasing it and leaning back to gaze at me. I smiled at her, content to have finally reached this point with Maura. I took her hand in mine, and brought it up to my breast, encouraging her to continue touching me. She cupped my breast and I moaned, letting my head drop back to lay against the back of the couch.

"God, Maura," I rasped, amazed that just a simple touch from her could start such a reaction within me.

Maura took her hand from my breast and started drawing a line with her finger from the crook of my neck down, between my breasts to the waistband of my yoga pants, where she stopped and hesitated.

"I love you, Jane." She paused, punctuating her words with kisses. "Please, let me show you how much," she said before she kissed me again.

I kissed her back, pulling her tightly against me, and didn't protest when she slid her hand inside my pants, and into my underwear. I moaned against her lips as Maura traced her fingers through my curls and into my folds. I was wet for her, and she seemed to purr at the realization of it.

She stroked me tentatively, almost teasingly slowly, and I sucked in a harsh breath at the sensation, making it sound like I had gasped. Maura mistook it for hesitancy on my part.

"Jane," Maura whispered, "I love you." She continued tracing a line from my center up to my clit and back again, and I kissed her in encouragement.

My hands found their way up her thighs, pushing her skirt up around her waist. I traced a lazy circle with my fingers on the outside of her underwear, feeling her own wetness seeping through the expensive fabric. Maura moaned, pressing herself up against my hand.

"Please, Jane."

I cupped her mons over her underwear and she stroked my clit once more. She rocked up against me as she kissed me, and I pushed aside the fabric of her underwear. I slid two fingers up and into her, gently, and she moaned at the sudden intrusion. Maura was so wet, so ready for me, that it sent a shiver down my spine. She kissed me again, her tongue tracing the same steady pattern her fingers were tracing over me, and my eyes fluttered shut. Maura began to rock back and forth against me, and she kissed a trail from my mouth down my neck to my collar bone. She stopped and bit the skin there, then laved over it with her tongue. Just as I was about to do the same to her, she slid two fingers inside of me, and I tensed up.

"Jane?" she asked quietly, pulling away slightly to look at me.

I smiled at her, then kissed her. She hadn't hurt me, she'd simply surprised me with her boldness. Having her inside of me, wrapped around me, and kissing me felt better than anything I'd ever experienced before. "Don't stop," I whispered to her, and she leaned into me, breaking our kiss so she could wrap her free arm around me and nuzzle into my neck. I felt her smile against me when she noticed my pulse quicken, along with the rate I was rubbing her center as she started grinding up against my fingers.

"You feel so good," she said to me as she nipped my earlobe and circled my clit a bit harder. We were working each other at the same rhythm, and Maura was breathing hard right up against my ear. The tiny, exhaled "ah" that she let out every once in a while was more erotic than anything else I'd ever heard.

I was quickly coming undone, the sensation Maura was creating within me was almost too much. Maura sensed this, and she moved faster against my hand while she slowed her own ministrations down. "Wait for me," she whispered, "I'm almost there."

She kissed me again and curled her fingers up inside of me, pressing up against my inner walls, and I cried out, unable to wait any longer. Within seconds I felt her contract around me, and together we tumbled over the edge.

In that moment, I wasn't broken. In that moment I was not an out of work homicide detective with life altering injuries to overcome. In that moment, I was everything I had always wanted to be. Strong. Tough. Protected. Loved. Oh, so loved. In that moment I was simply Jane, and the only other person in the world that mattered was Maura, and she was right there with me. She was all I needed, and for that moment, I felt whole again.

I was finally home. I felt alive again. I was among the living.


	42. Chapter 42

**A/N:** Wow, the vast majority of you _loved_ chapter 41. Thank you for the great responses! Thank you also to CharlietheCAG for the beta of this chapter. Good luck tomorrow, Charlie. You know what for. ;)

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It took us both a little while to get our breathing back to normal, and we spent that time completely tangled up in each other on the couch. Maura finally lifted her head from my shoulder and looked at me with a sheepish grin.

She was so beautiful in that moment. She looked so proud of herself, but she also looked a little uncertain, as if she was afraid of my reaction. We had finally crossed that line, and I'd finally let her in, and I wanted her to know that I didn't regret anything.

"That was… fantastic," I said to her as I leaned in to give her a languid kiss. "Better than I imagined it would be, and what I had been imagining was already pretty amazing."

"Are you sure?"

"_Very_ sure."

"I'm glad. I can't wait to do it again," Maura said with a huge grin.

"You're insatiable," I groaned in mock exasperation.

"You have _no idea_, Jane."

I giggled, a pure, spontaneous giggle that I hadn't done in years. A weight had definitely been lifted off of my shoulders that afternoon. Maura stood up, off of my lap, and held her hand out to me.

"Let's go to bed. We both need to sleep," she said, yawning.

"I never thought I'd hear of the day when you actually volunteered to take a nap," I answered her with a yawn of my own.

"Some studies have shown that short naps during the day actually help productivity and help to boost the immune system," Maura said as she gathered our shirts and bras with her free hand. "Besides, I'm completely exhausted."

"Me too," I agreed as I followed her to her bedroom.

I closed the door behind us, and watched as Maura removed what little clothing she still had on. I was expecting her to change into pajamas but instead she just pulled the covers down and got into bed.

"Are you going to join me, Jane?" she asked with mock innocence.

I hesitated for a moment, loathe to remove my clothes in front of Maura, but then I realized that I had nothing to hide from her. She'd seen me time and again since my accident, and we'd just had sex on her couch. If she could stand to make love to me in this condition, I could sleep naked next to her that way too. I sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled my yoga pants and underwear off, and joined her under the covers.

As I spooned around Maura, I heard her sigh in relief. It dawned on me in that moment that she was just as nervous about all of this as I was, maybe just for different reasons. I kissed the back of her head.

"I love you, Maura."

She squeezed my hand before bringing it up to her lips and kissing it gently. "I love you, too."

We spent the next several hours curled up around each other on Maura's bed, both of us falling into a deep sleep almost as soon as our heads hit the pillows. While our lovemaking that afternoon had initially left me feeling energized and so damn happy, I couldn't keep my eyes open, and neither could Maura.

It was Maura's cell phone that woke us.

"Dr. Isles," she answered, her voice perfectly schooled to hide the fact that she had just been fast asleep.

"Yes, she is here, Frost. She got discharged to outpatient therapy today," Maura said in response to whatever Frost had asked her.

Maura rolled over to look at me as she spoke into the phone.

"Let me ask her. Hang on."

Maura muted the call before speaking to me. "They need a statement from you about what happened today at the rehab. Frost wants to know if you want to go down to the precinct to give it, and then the four of us can go have a late dinner at the Dirty Robber together."

"Um…" I wasn't crazy about the idea of going back to the precinct. I didn't want people to see how far I had fallen. Although my confidence had been bolstered by the events of the day, I wasn't ready to face my former colleagues. I wasn't sure what it would be like to walk back into the Boston Police Department after the way I'd left it.

Maura seemed to sense this. "We can be in and out before the eight o'clock shift change if we leave now."

"I don't know, Maura."

"Jane, Sean said he wanted you to come see him when you started outpatient therapy. You were going to have to go back there at some point. Why not bite the bullet and just do it tonight?"

I sighed. She was right. I had to go back at some point, and it would make sense to go now, when things were going so well. If we got in and out before the shift change, the likelihood of a lot of people seeing me would be slim.

"All right."

Maura smiled at me and unmuted the phone. "We'll be there in a half hour."

She disconnected the call and leaned in to kiss me.

"I'm proud of you. Come on, let's get dressed."

Maura got up and walked, stark naked, to her bathroom to freshen up, but stopped in the doorway and waited for me.

"Are you coming?" she asked playfully.

"If I follow you in there, yes, probably," I said with a huge grin. "But since we're short on time, I'll just go freshen up in the guest bathroom and put on some of the clothes you have for me in the guest room."

"Suit yourself," Maura shrugged, but she blew me a kiss as she walked into the bathroom.

I made my way into the guest room and found a pair of jeans hanging in the closet. It reminded me that I should ask Maura to drive me over to the storage unit so I could bring some of my own clothes home. It wasn't that the clothes Maura had picked up for me weren't wonderful. They really were. It's just that it would be nice to wear something of my own, that I wouldn't be too afraid of ruining because it wasn't super expensive. I cleaned up in the guest bathroom, and put on the clothes I'd found.

When I walked back out a few minutes later, Maura was waiting for me at the top of the stairs.

"Where are your crutches?" she asked, finally realizing I wasn't using them.

"Probably in evidence bags. I used one to smash William in the face," I said with a grin.

"Oh," Maura said, raising an eyebrow.

"The whole psychopath thing aside, it felt really good to hit him. It was payback for what he did to you."

"Jane," Maura admonished.

"Well, that and the whole psychopath thing," I added again, to make it sound better.

"Mmhm," Maura said, not quite convinced.

We made our way down the stairs and Maura found a coat for me to wear in her front hall closet.

"Tomorrow morning we'll go out and get you a new coat and new boots. I have no idea when they'll release your room at the rehab, but your coat was ruined anyway."

"We could just go to the storage facility and pick up some of my clothes from there. I was going to ask you to do that anyway," I suggested.

"We'd have to go get the key from Walter, and I'm sure we have to make an appointment to do that. I'll call him Monday from work and see if he can squeeze us in next week for an evening appointment. I'm interested to hear about the progress he's making on your case as well." She paused to look at me. "I mean, only if you want me to."

"Of course I want you to. You probably know more about this stuff than I do. Besides, I can't drive so you're going to have to drive me over there," I said with a wink.

"As much as it pains me to do this, I think I'm going to have to call Dr. Pike in part time for the next several weeks, so we can make sure you're settled in at home and have everything you need," Maura said, thinking out loud.

"No way, Maura. Ma is home, and she'll take me to and from therapy. You need to work. You've already missed too much work because of me anyway. I'll be here every night when you get home, no matter how late it is," I said resolutely.

"Now that I have you to come home to, I'm going to try even harder to get home at a decent time every night."

"Murders don't wait for decent times, Maur. There's nothing decent about murder. You know that," I said with a grin. "But no matter what time you get home, I'll be there."

Maura leaned around me to open the car door for me, but stopped and kissed me. "Welcome home, Jane."

"Thank you for giving me a home," I whispered to her after our kiss.

Maura beamed at me as she walked around to her side of the car and I got in on my side. When she closed the door and started the car she looked over at me. "I'm so glad you're here. This house was so empty without you in it." She paused, and gave me a sheepish grin as the garage door opened up behind us. "I really always felt like this was where you belonged, and it's like a dream come true for me that you're here to stay now."

"I always liked your house better than my apartment," I deflected, but smiled at her.

"It's more than just the quality of the dwelling," Maura said as we began to drive toward the precinct. "Without you here, this was just a place to stay. A house, but not a home. Now that you're back, this feels like home again. Two years without you here was a long time, Jane."

"But you had William living with you for a while," I reminded her.

"It wasn't the same." Maura glanced at me as we approached a traffic light. "I loved him, Jane. I won't lie and say I didn't. But he was never you. When I finally gave up on the idea of us, he seemed to be the next best thing. I made it work with him. But with you, everything has always been pretty effortless. I don't have to make it work with you, because it works without trying. We were apart for so long, but we can still finish each other's sentences. I still know what you're thinking before you ever say anything. I never had that with William."

"It makes me sad that you gave up on us. I don't blame you for doing it, I just regret never telling you how I felt," I said sadly.

"I told myself that I gave up on us ever becoming a couple, but that day you told me you were leaving, I realized that I didn't want a life without you in it. I would have done anything to get you to stay, but I felt like anything I could have said or done at that point would have just driven you further away. I let you go, Jane, and I regret that as much as you regret never telling me how you felt," Maura said quietly, the regret she felt obvious in her voice.

"We both have regrets, but what's important now is that we have each other, right?" I asked.

"Yes," Maura said with a smile.

"Um, so I was wondering. Since I can't get into my stuff that's in storage until we pick up the key from Walter Laffler and we're going to go shopping anyway… maybe I could take you out on a date tomorrow night?"

"You want to go out?" Maura asked, thrilled.

"Yeah, if you don't mind being seen with me," I said uncertainly.

"Jane, you don't look nearly as bad as you think you do," Maura reminded me sternly.

"So, maybe we can pick up an outfit and a new coat and I can take you someplace?"

"I'd love that. Where would you like to go?" Maura asked.

"No, where would _you_ like to go, Maura? I'm taking you out."

"I don't think you can do heels yet, can you?" Maura asked out loud while she was thinking. "So we should rule out somewhere fancy, for now."

"I can buy a pair of flats, Maura. We can go wherever you want." I really wanted her to pick someplace she would enjoy. I wanted to thank her for what she had been doing for my mother and I for so long.

"Oh, Jane, I have the perfect idea. I'll have to make a few calls to see if tickets are available, but I know there is a preview of Wicked tomorrow night at the Boston Opera House. We could go see the show and then have dinner afterward!"

"Maura, that sounds wonderful, but I really wanted to do this for you, and make it special for you. If you have to make calls to pull strings to get tickets, then I'm not doing it for you," I said gently.

"Okay," Maura said slowly. "But I'd be glad to do that. You could still take me to dinner."

"What if we saw a show that has publicly available tickets? I could try to surprise you," I offered.

"That sounds like fun. There are a few shows I haven't seen yet that I would love to see."

"Such as?" I asked.

"Surprise me, Jane," she answered with a happy grin.

"Okay."

And just like that, I'd asked Maura out on our first date. I think the fact that we were already living together and we'd had sex on her couch earlier in the day took some of the pressure off of me. I chuckled at the thought.

"What?" Maura asked. "What are you laughing at?"

"Well, I was just thinking that we're living together now, and we've already had sex… so it's about time I asked you out on a date."

Maura laughed too. "We've never actually done things in order, have we?"

"Nope."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," she said to me as we pulled into the precinct's parking garage.

My laugh at her remark got lost somewhere in my throat as I realized where we were.

"Jane?"

Suddenly this felt like a really bad idea.

"Jane?" Maura asked again.

"I, um, I don't have my crutches," I blurted out nervously, not really voicing my fears but trying to answer Maura's question.

"I'm here, Jane. I won't let you fall." I knew she meant more than just trip up the stairs. She was going to be with me every step of the way, from the statement I had to give that night to the day I returned back to work.

I looked over to Maura and she was watching me closely. She put her hand out to take mine.

"You can do this," she said, and again I knew she wasn't just talking about this statement tonight.

I put my hand in hers and squeezed it. "You're right. Let's do this."

We got out of the car and she put one arm around my waist, pulling me close to her. I adjusted the hat on my head and squeezed her waist. Slowly, we made our way into the lobby of the BPD.

It hadn't changed. The officer on duty at the front desk gave Maura a polite nod, and it took him a second to recognize me as we approached.

"Detective Rizzoli?" he asked.

"Yes. Hello Officer-" I didn't recognize him. I didn't recall ever seeing him on duty while I'd been with the BPD.

"Walters. And I'm still a cadet. Jeez, it's great to meet you, Detective. My brother works for NYPD and he told me you were a legend down there in just the short time you were there. One of the instructors at the academy here mentions your work in class all the time!"

I blushed. He held his hand out and I shook it. "Did I work with your brother?" I felt Maura squeeze my waist as she watched our conversation.

"No, he is in organized crime and rackets, but one of the perps you took in wound up falling under his jurisdiction. He got the file after your, um, departure. Said you did all the hard work on the file, like a real pro," Cadet Walters gushed.

"Wow. I had no idea," I said, smiling.

"It's great to see you doing so well. I've heard rumors you might be coming back here," he said conspiratorially.

"That's the plan, but it's still a ways off yet," I said, not letting him get his hopes up, or mine, for that matter.

"Well, it will be great to have you back here. I can rub it in my brother's face," he said with a smile.

"It would be great to come back here," I replied truthfully.

Cadet Walters handed me a visitor sticker. "Sorry, Detective. It's just protocol. I could get in trouble for not giving it to you," he said sheepishly, wincing as he handed it to me.

I looked down at the sticker and took it. "I understand." I put it on my hip, where my badge normally would have been.

"Get well soon," the friendly cadet said as Maura and I walked over to the elevators and waited.

"See?" Maura said quietly. "Nothing to worry about."

"Let's make it up to homicide before we decide that for sure," I responded, but I kissed her cheek to let her know I was okay.

The elevator pinged and the doors opened for us. Two men I didn't recognize got off first, and Detective Crowe got off behind them. Maura felt me stiffen, and she squeezed my waist again. Her arm never left me.

"Dr. Isles," Crowe said with a curt nod as he walked away. He didn't even spare me a second look. He obviously hadn't recognized me. Part of me was relieved that he hadn't noticed me, and part of me was incensed that I had worked with the man for years and he walked right by, but a junior officer I had never met before was able to recognize me.

"It's a reflection on him, not you, Jane," Maura said as we got on the elevator.

"How did you even know what I was thinking?"

"I always know what you're thinking," she said with a sly smile. "Detective Crowe probably wouldn't even recognize his own mother if she wore a wig in a different hairstyle. He's too wrapped up in himself to pay attention to anyone else. It's why he's such a crappy detective."

"_Maura!_" I said, pretending to be scandalized by her word choice. She grinned at me. "He really is such a pig."

The doors opened on the third floor and we walked out together, slowly, toward the Homicide unit. Part of my slow speed was simply because I couldn't keep my balance if I walked too fast, but part of it was also because I was terrified of walking back in there.

Some of the happiest moments of my life took place in that room. They were moments filled with success and pride. My departure from there had been filled with nothing but sadness though, and it was too much for me to think about. We were about halfway between the elevator and the doorway to BRIC when I felt my pelvis start to give way.

"Easy," Maura commanded quietly, holding me even tighter. "We're almost there, and you're all right."

I watched as Frost spotted us and jumped up, running to greet us. Korsak wasn't far behind him.

Together the three of them walked me in, and sat me directly down in my old chair at my old desk. Frost handed me back my cell phone. "I had to wipe it clean, Jane. I'm sorry. I put all the contacts back on there that I could think of for you, but you may need to ask a few people for their numbers again. You'll need to reinstall your apps, too. We took a complete image of the phone so we could use the malware he installed as evidence against him, but you may actually have to turn the phone back in as evidence if Captain Crazypants' attorney is a stickler about it."

"Captain Crazypants?" I asked, amused. I missed nicknaming suspects with my old partners.

"William Sheridan," Korsak clarified. "They had to sedate him in the emergency room. Instead of keeping him in lockup, they're putting him in a lockdown psych ward until his arraignment. If his attorney wants to go the insanity route, he won't have too difficult a time."

"Jesus," I whispered.

"Yeah but you've got nothing to worry about. No judge in his right mind would set bail for him and he's got at least seventy-two hours of psych hold to deal with. Whether he goes to Walpole or some padded room somewhere, he's not seeing the light of day for a long, long time. I don't care how good his attorney is," Korsak said.

"His brother would do well to convince him to just plead out, so it doesn't make the news," Maura added. I didn't add that if he were to plead out, there wouldn't be a trial for me to attend either.

"So Jane, welcome back," Frost said, changing the subject. "As you can see, we kept your desk for you," he smiled at me broadly.

I tried not to freak out. I really tried to stay calm and realize that all I was doing was sitting in my old chair at my old desk in the bullpen. There was no reason to panic.

But I was panicking, and thankfully Maura noticed it.

"Hey, hey, what's the matter?" she asked quietly as Frost and Korsak blabbed on about how great it was to have me back there and all the stuff they couldn't wait to do when I came back to work.

"I don't know," I said, putting a hand against my chest. "I can't calm down." It was getting harder and harder to breathe. My chest felt like there were straps tied around it, keeping me from inhaling. The harder I tried to inhale, the more difficult breathing became.

"You're all right Jane," she soothed.

"I know, but I don't feel all right."

"Rizzoli, is that you?" Cavanaugh called from outside of his office. "Jeez, it is you. Get in here! I can't believe you're here!"

Cavanaugh seemed to provide enough of a distraction for me to calm down, and the group of us made our way into his office. Once again, Maura's arm never left my waist as we walked, and she was sure to take the chair directly next to me when we were seated in Cavanaugh's office.

Frost and Korsak pulled their own chairs in from their desks and Cavanaugh sat back behind the desk. At first everyone was talking at once.

Frost and Korsak were talking about William and how he already had a high-priced criminal defense attorney, likely arranged for by his brother Jeffrey.

Cavanaugh was asking about my stitches on my forehead and congratulating me on taking William down earlier that day.

Maura was whispering in my ear to just calm down, I was among friends and I was going to be all right.

It was Maura's breath on my ear and her hand in my own that convinced me that I was all right, and my panicky episode from a few moments earlier finally passed.

I was calmer, ready to give my statement, but I wanted to get out of there.

I gave my statement to Frost, whose case this had become officially. But Korsak, Cavanaugh and Maura were all still in the room with me. Their reactions to my telling of the events varied.

Maura's demeanor went from shocked to horror and swung around to fear. She had pulled her chair so close to mine that at one point I thought she was going to try and crawl into my lap. I would not have objected.

Korsak cheered me along during my statement, going so far as to yell "That'll learn 'em!" when I spoke about striking William with one of my crutches.

Cavanaugh interjected with a "That's my Rizzoli" a few times.

Frost, for his part, just took the statement, giving me encouragement to continue and ignoring the reactions of everyone around us. I was glad when it was over.

Frost wrapped everything up and went back to his desk to take care of some paperwork. Korsak went out to help him, presumably so they could speed up the process and we could all go to dinner. That left Maura and I behind with Cavanaugh.

"So how are you, Jane?" Cavanaugh asked, smiling at me.

"Doing better every day sir," I said truthfully.

"That's good to hear. When do you think you'll be available to come in part time to do desk duty?"

"Oh, um, I'm not sure yet, sir. I just got released to outpatient therapy today, and I'm still doing therapy five days a week." I was surprised at how fast he offered me desk duty.

"Did they give you a timeframe for when you might be able to do desk duty?" he asked, concerned.

"Not yet, sir. I actually wasn't slated to start outpatient therapy for another three weeks, but after the incident today, I told them I wasn't spending another night in that facility."

"Back to speaking your mind, that's good, Rizzoli," Cavanaugh said with a smile. "Ultimately I'd like to have you come back two or three days a week for four hours at a time, doing desk duty. That will get you back on our payroll. I know you'll hate doing paperwork, but it will help keep your skills sharp and your face fresh. Plus your partners can't wait to have you back, and you'll give them a break with the paperwork so they can spend more time in the field pursuing suspects," Cavanaugh said, almost unusually cheerful.

"I imagine it'll be another month to a month and a half before they reduce the number of days I'm in therapy. I'll ask about it on my next follow up visit with my doctor." The idea of doing nothing but paperwork sounded horrible, but being back to work in some capacity, even on a part-time basis, sounded wonderful.

"Lieutenant, Jane is going to need access to an obstacle course, so she can start practicing for her physical qualifications. Would it be possible for her to use the BPD's when she is cleared medically?" Maura asked sweetly, changing the subject.

"Absolutely. The sooner you physically requalify, the sooner we can have you back out on the streets catching dirtbags."

"Thanks. I'm excited about all of this, but it's all still months away. I just want to remind everyone of that. I'm trying really hard, but I won't be ready to come back to work for a long time." The last thing I wanted was for people to get impatient with me.

"We know, Jane. And we're all real proud of you for the progress you've made so far. Come and see me again sometime soon though. It's good having you around here with us. Now, did I hear something about dinner at the Robber?"

"Yes, Lieutenant, would you like to join us?" Maura asked.

"I could go for a burger," Cavanaugh said, nodding.

"Wait till you see it, Jane. There's a whole new organic menu at the Robber now!" Maura effused.

"What?" I asked.

"Don't worry, they still have the good stuff on the menu, too," Cavanaugh said when he saw my look of horror.

"The Robber went organic?" I asked as we made our way out of Cavanaugh's office.

"Yeah, I have no idea what Murray was thinking," Cavanaugh said morosely.

Murray practically jumped over the bar when he saw me walk in with the rest of the gang a little while later. I was so busy staring at the new interior design of the place that I nearly missed it. Before I knew it though, he was right there in front of me, giving me a hug.

"Detective Rizzoli! So good to see you! Come in! Come in! You want me to open up the back room so you can all sit back there?" he asked, leading us along.

"That would be a good idea," Maura said, watching me look around at the people who were staring at Murray's outburst, and subsequently staring at me.

Once we were seated in the back room that was usually reserved for private parties, I took a moment to look around. The Dirty Robber had changed a lot since the last time I was here. The interior was brighter and looked more spacious, even though it still consisted of the same amount of space it occupied the last time I was there.

"What happened in here?" I asked when Murray had walked away.

"Murray went on a health kick. Decided to incorporate some healthier fare into his menu. He wanted to use organic food and locally sourced foods, but the backlash at the idea was so huge that he relented and kept most of the old menu too. Once he changed the menu though, he decided the old wood paneling and teak bar didn't fit in with his new persona," Korsak answered.

"You're kidding me," I said, astonished.

"No, look at the menu. He's got two parts, one labeled 'good stuff' and one labeled 'bad stuff'," Frost answered.

He really did. I went right for the menu page labeled bad stuff and I heard Maura chuff next to me.

Cavanaugh laughed. "I'm havin' a burger, Doc. You should try one too. Maybe they'll make it with organic beef for you."

"I think I'll just have a salad," Maura replied, not even realizing that Cavanaugh was playing with her, or that she was the only one at the table that had her menu turned to the 'good stuff' page.

Murray came back while we were looking at the menus with a tray full of tap beers for all of us.

"This round's on me folks. Can't tell you how good it is to see you, Detective Rizzoli. This is a sorry bunch when you're not with them."

"Hey!" Korsak yelped, clearly insulted.

"On the other hand, Korsak's beer intake has nearly doubled since you've been gone, so I can't complain," Murray added as he walked away.

I quickly grabbed a mug of beer as did everyone else at the table.

"To Janie," Korsak said, raising his mug, already over the insults Murray had slung at him.

"To all of you," I said raising my glass, but making sure to catch Maura's eye.

I had the mug almost to my mouth when Maura grabbed it gently and pulled it away from me. "You can't have alcohol yet."

"Oh come on, Maura. One sip isn't going to hurt me. It's rude not to drink after a toast!" I protested.

"Yeah, Doc. Let her have a drink. Just one," Frost said. "Don't you think she deserves it, after today?"

"Please?" I asked, giving her my best puppy dog eyes.

"Okay. A few sips. But that's it! Your body can't process alcohol the same way it used to. A little alcohol will go a long way. You can't be hung over. We have plans tomorrow," she reminded me.

"Okay. I promise," I said.

We all raised our glasses once more and I took a sizeable chug out of mine. Goddamn, but that was the best beer I ever tasted up until that point. I was tempted to drink all of it, but even after a few sips, I could already start to feel a buzz building. My alcohol tolerance at that point was apparently non-existent.

Frankie showed up just as we were about to place our orders, and I handed him my unfinished beer, which he gratefully drank. Maura looked pleased when I ordered my burger with a side salad instead of fries, and a water. I didn't really want to push my luck.

Conversation at the dinner table flowed pretty nicely. I didn't have much to add, considering I'd spent the last three months trying to put my life back together, but I listened intently to their stories about work while I enjoyed my burger. For as anxious as I had become sitting in my old seat in the bullpen, I was eager to get back into work. I wanted to be a part of their team again in the worst way. I tried not to think about the fact that even though everyone there wanted me to go back to work, my body may have had other ideas for me. It really was still a matter of wait and see at that point.

I wondered suddenly what would happen to our group dynamic if it turned out I could not return to work. Would I still be welcomed to dinner like this? Would Murray still call me Detective Rizzoli? Would Cavenaugh still welcome me into his office with open arms like he did today, even just to visit?

What about Frost and Korsak? What would it be like to disappoint them again and would they be able to forgive me again as easily as they had when they found out I'd been hurt?

And what about Maura? Would she still love me the way she promised me she would? What if she didn't? What would I do and where would I go if she broke up with me? How could I live without her?

How could I live with the disappointment if I didn't qualify for duty? How long would the BPD even give me, before they decided their need for another body in the homicide unit was greater than their need to wait for me to get better? What if they needed someone before I could even try to take my physical qualification?

What would happen then?

I had more questions than I had answers. I hated feeling so unsure of myself and the uncertainty of it all. I hated that I had even found myself in this position to begin with. Why did this all have to happen to me?

Everyone around me was laughing at a story Frankie had just finished telling, but I sat there looking like someone had just slapped me. Frankie had elbowed me gently, trying to get me to laugh too, but I hadn't heard a word he said.

Maura picked right up on it. "I think it's time for us to call it a night. Jane's had a very trying day, and she needs to rest."

"You okay, Janie?" Frankie asked quietly.

"Um, yeah. Just tired," I said to him, then repeated myself louder for the rest of the table to hear. "I'm just tired, guys. Thanks for a great dinner!" I tried to sound enthusiastic, and I think it sounded that way to everyone but Maura. Everyone stood up to give us both kisses on our cheeks as we made our way back out.

Murray waved at us as we left, yelling a quick "Come back soon, Detective!" at us as we passed by.

Come back soon, Detective.

I wanted to turn around to Murray and tell him that was exactly what I'd been wishing for since the day I opened my eyes nearly three months ago.

Come back soon.

Detective.


	43. Chapter 43

**A/N:** After last night's episode of Rizzoli and Isles, I was so disappointed and angry. In my opinion, episode 4.07 was nothing more than a beardfest, created specifically to remind the fans that Jane and Maura are "straight". It was so awful. I certainly hope the fluff at the end of this chapter makes up for the lack of Rizzles on the show last night.

Thanks, as always, to CharlietheCAG for her beta edits on this chapter. They are _always_ appreciated.

* * *

I was very quiet on the drive home, staring out the passenger side window and rubbing circles in my palms with my thumbs. Maura looked over at me several times, but stopped herself from speaking every time. I could see her worried reflection in the passenger side window in the darkened car.

"What happened back there?" Maura finally asked me when we were nearly halfway home.

"Nothing," I said.

"Something happened, Jane. One minute you were listening, laughing and adding to the conversation, and the next you were pale and terrified looking."

"It's nothing, Maura. I'm just tired."

"Since when does being tired make you terrified?" she pressed.

"I wasn't terrified," I said, without much conviction.

"Don't lie to me Jane!" Maura's tone scared me almost as much as my thoughts had earlier.

"I was just thinking, Maura. It was nothing, really. I had a long day, and it all caught up to me, I guess."

"What were you thinking about?" Maura inquired, no sign of giving up on this line of questioning.

"Work," I muttered.

"What were you thinking about work, Jane?"

"You sound like Dr. Gilfried," I said, starting to grow irritated.

"Stop deflecting."

"See? She says that too!"

"Jane." Maura wasn't going to take any nonsense from me.

"Okay! Fine! What if I can't go back to work? What's it going to be like for me to be around all of you if I can't go back?!" I was yelling. It felt good to yell.

"You will go back to work," Maura said simply, not raising her voice.

"But I don't know that, Maura! I don't know if I will be able to do that. I want to be able to go back, but the chances are that I'm never going to physically qualify for duty. And what then? What's going to happen to me? WHAT WILL I DO, MAURA?!"

Maura actually pulled the car over at my outburst. She threw it into park on a side street and turned to face me, grabbing both of my hands in her own.

"Jane, I truly believe you will return to work. It may take time, years even, but you will do it. And if you don't, because you can't or because you decide not to, we'll figure it out. It will not be the end of the world. I promise you that. No matter what happens, everything will be all right," Maura soothed.

"What if I can't go back to work and all of them, Korsak, Frost, Cavanaugh, even you, make me feel like I don't belong anymore? What if I already don't belong?" I worried.

"Jane, you are part of a family that loves you. Frost, Korsak, Cavanaugh, they are all part of that family too. We love you. You will always be a part of that family. You will_ neve_r not belong."

"I'm so scared, Maura."

The words were out of my mouth before I ever had the chance to censor them. I hated admitting I was afraid of anything. I think the only time prior to that I had admitted to Maura that I was afraid of something was the night I spent at her house when Charles Hoyt was after me, and Bass' wanderings around the kitchen made me think someone was trying to break in.

Maura unbuckled her seatbelt and then leaned over to unbuckle mine. Then she pulled me across the center console and hugged me to her tightly.

"You're not alone, Jane. We're in this together. I will do everything I can to make sure you can go back to work if that's what you want. But if you can't, you're not going to lose me over it. You're not going to lose your family over it either. We'll support you no matter what." The conviction in Maura's voice was almost overwhelming.

"But what will I do if I can't go back?" I worried.

"We'll both retire early and go live on a tropical island somewhere," Maura said with a shrug.

"I couldn't ask you to give up your career for me, Maura. It means too much to you."

"But I _would_ give it up for you, Jane. And maybe early retirement isn't the answer, but my point is that I would go anywhere and do anything for you. We will figure it out. When the time comes, we will figure it out. But for now, know that I have faith in you, and I know in my heart that you are going to go back to work."

"I thought you didn't listen to organs that weren't capable of thinking," I said suspiciously.

"If I've learned anything, Jane, it's to listen to my heart when it comes to you, even if physiologically, it doesn't make sense."

"I love you, Googlemouth."

"I love you, Detective."

I sat back in my seat and buckled up. Maura looked me over for a moment before she put her seatbelt back on and put the car back in gear. She held my hand the rest of the way home.

When we got home I told Maura I was going over to the guesthouse to go get Jo Friday. If I was home permanently, there was no reason why she needed to stay with Ma all the time. While I was over there I asked Ma for my debit card and my driver's license. Both of them had been in my pocket when I had been involved in the train accident, and they were turned over to my mother after I had been found. Ma gave me a sheepish look as she handed the plastic baggie containing both items over to me. When I looked at them, I realized why. Both of them were crusted with blood. My blood, presumably. They'd been in my back pocket when my abdomen was crushed.

"Sorry honey, I was so wrapped up in you that I forgot all about trying to clean those off, and it never occurred to me to get you new ones."

"It's okay. I'll see what I can do with them. Thanks, Ma."

Jo Friday and I walked back across the yard to Maura's house, and I asked Maura if I could use her laptop. I explained to her I wanted to see if I could get us tickets to a show for the following night.

While Maura went upstairs to get her laptop, I set about getting the blood off of my debit card. I probably wouldn't get it presentable enough to hand to a waiter to pay for dinner, but I could get it functional enough to take cash out of an ATM and use that to pay for dinner.

When Maura came back down, I was standing with my back to her, over the kitchen sink, using a paper towel and some soapy water to clean off my debit card and my driver's license. My scrubbing had created a small mess in the sink.

"What are you doing?" Maura asked, leaving her laptop on the kitchen island. She walked up behind me before I could answer her, and gasped.

"Jane, where did you get them?" she breathed.

"From my mother. I didn't realize they were going to be this bloody. I, I didn't realize I was that bloody. They were in my back pocket. I always put my cards in my back pocket. Ma said they were in my back pocket and she forgot about them and didn't clean them off." I didn't know why I was babbling like that, repeating myself. Maybe it was the realization that I had almost bled to death, and these cards were proof of that. Maybe seeing something of my own, that had been with me when the accident happened, had triggered my nervousness.

I scrubbed harder, but all I was managing to do was smear the blood around on the cards. It was caked on, stuck between the raised digits of the card and dried into the signature strip on the back. My signature wasn't even visible on the back. I scraped at the card with my fingernail, and wound up getting a considerable amount of the newly rehydrated blood on my hands.

"Stop, Jane! Stop. Please. I can't look at that!" Maura cried out, panicstricken.

I looked over at Maura, who was staring at my red hands and the mess in the sink. She had paled considerably.

"You look at blood all the time, Maura," I said, shocked at her reaction.

"Not _yours_, Jane. Especially not your blood from that accident."

Maura walked away from me and sank down onto the couch in the living room. I dropped the cards onto a clean paper towel and then washed my hands and the sink thoroughly. I walked back over to Maura and sat next to her.

"Hey," I took her hands in mine as I sat down. "You know, throughout all of this, you've been so good to me, making sure that I was okay. But I don't think anyone has asked you how you're doing. Are you all right, Maura?"

She shook her head no.

I wrapped my arm around her waist and she laid her head on my shoulder.

She cried softly, into my shoulder. "I'm not okay. I'm not okay with seeing your blood again, Jane. I lost you when you walked away to go to New York. And I almost lost you permanently in that train derailment, and then again today when William tried to kill you. I can't lose you. And I can't be reminded of how close I came to losing you, over and over again."

"You're not going to lose me, Maura. You're stuck with me," I promised her. More_ stu_ck than anything else, I thought.

"It's just that your blood, I saw it twice today. It just reminded me of how fragile you are. How fragile we all are really," she said as she cried into my shoulder.

I rocked her gently back and forth. "I'm not as fragile as you think. I survived, Maura. And every day I get stronger because of you and all that you've done for me. The worst is over, Maur."

"I know, it's just still shocking to see. How is it that I can be completely detached at a gruesome crime scene, but watching you clean up your own blood makes me feel faint?"

"Welcome to the human race, Maura. If you felt as deeply for all of the victims whose murders you help solve as you feel for me, you would faint every time you saw their blood," I pointed out to her gently.

"I guess you're right," she murmured.

"It means a lot to me that you were that concerned, Maura. It's just another reason why I love you so much. I'm sorry I upset you, though. I just wanted to be able to use the card to take us out tomorrow night."

"Leave the cards for tonight, Jane. Let's just go to bed," Maura said decisively.

"But I didn't get us tickets for tomorrow night."

"Let's put that off until next week, okay? This week we'll go to the bank and get you a new debit card, and we'll go to the Registry of Motor Vehicles' website to get you a replacement license in the morning."

"You don't want to go out tomorrow night? On our date?" I was saddened that I had upset her that much.

"Can we put it off a week?" she asked hopefully. "Would you mind? I think I just want you all to myself this weekend."

"Sure," I said, shrugging.

"Are you angry?"

I definitely wasn't angry. "How could I be angry at being alone with you all weekend? We have all the time in the world to go on dates. And maybe it would be better if I got the rest of my credit cards and clothes out of storage before we go out."

"Thanks, Jane. Thank you for understanding."

"There's no need to thank me, or to be sorry. Let's spend the weekend at home. And let's go to bed. I'm exhausted."

"Me too," Maura said as she wrapped an arm around my waist after I stood up.

We put out some kibble and water for Jo, looked in on the tortoises, and then made our way upstairs. I stopped off in the guest room for some pajamas. By the time I made my way back into Maura's bedroom, she was already coming out of the bathroom. She helped me into bed.

"I can do that myself, you know," I said with a smile, to take the bite out of my words.

"I know," she grinned. "But I rarely get to tuck you in, so I thought I might take advantage of that tonight."

"You now have that option every night," I said proudly.

"And I plan to exercise it," she said, still smiling.

Maura walked around the bed and got in on her side, then she leaned in and kissed me.

"Welcome home, beautiful girl."

Maura snuggled up against me, her head under my chin. I wrapped my arms around her and breathed her in, running my hand over her golden curls before kissing the top of her head.

"I love you," I whispered to her when she fell asleep. She snuggled in closer, and I closed my eyes. I fell asleep to the sound of her breathing, thankful for the second chance life had given me.

The next morning I woke up to an empty bed. I reached over for Maura, disappointed that she wasn't there. I rolled over and looked at the clock. It was only eight. Not too late, but too late for Maura, I supposed.

I got up and made my way slowly into the bathroom. I was incredibly sore from the events of the day before. I wondered if Maura was waiting downstairs for me, or if I had the time to take a hot bath in her jacuzzi tub. The hot water and the jets would be just the thing I needed.

I decided a bath was the way to go. If Maura needed me for anything, she could come up and get me. I started filling the tub, turning the hot water on as high as I could get it to go, and dropping in some of the lavender bubble bath that Maura had gotten for me a week before. I turned the jets on in the tub and started to undress while the bubbles began to foam up. I was just getting ready to step into the tub when I felt, rather than heard, the bathroom door open behind me. I turned around to look when I felt the slightly cooler air enter through the open door.

Maura was standing there, still dressed in her pajamas from the night before, openly appraising me.

Since my back was to her, I felt a little less conscious of my scars, and I gave her a little shimmy.

"You like?" I asked, mimicking Maura's signature move.

"Very much," she said with a sly smile.

I turned slightly and reached out, crooking a finger at her. "Want to join me?"

"Very much," Maura repeated, stepping into the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

She stepped in front of me and I lifted her silk nightgown over her head, tossing it aside. She wasn't wearing anything underneath it.

"Mmm… Dr. Isles, what happened to your underwear?" I let my eyes wander down her body, and let my hands follow.

"I think you melted them off of me when you did that little shimmy over there," she said seductively.

I chuckled as I leaned in to kiss her. It felt so good to touch her, to feel my bare skin against her own. I cupped her breast, then bent over to take her nipple into my mouth. Maura tossed her head back and moaned. I kissed my way back up to her mouth, swallowing her gasp as I ran the hand that had been cupping her breast down her body, around her navel, and over her center, and then I entered her with two fingers.

"You're not much for foreplay, are you?" she asked, as her eyes fluttered shut and I pulled her tighter against me.

"Oh, I'm all about foreplay," I said confidently.

"Really? Because this isn't foreplay," she said as she moved her pelvis in time with my fingers, her fingernails digging into my shoulders.

"I know. We have years of unrequited lust to make up for. There will be time for foreplay later."

"You'll have to show me your skills," she challenged.

"I plan on it."

I leaned down to kiss the nape of her neck, and she slid two fingers into me. We didn't even need foreplay at that point because we were both already so worked up. Maura was as wet as the bath that was waiting for us, and I wasn't much different.

My pelvis started to wobble, the closer I got to orgasm, so Maura turned us slightly and pushed me up against the bathroom sink. She pressed up against me, never slowing the pace of her fingers inside of me or her thumb on my clit. I did my best to reciprocate, and was rewarded when Maura came first, practically collapsing on top of me. I followed her seconds later, and held on to her for dear life, because I knew between my weakened knees and my injuries I wasn't going to stay upright.

Maura removed her fingers from inside of me and wrapped her arms around me, nuzzling against my neck.

"Mmm," I moaned. "I think we need to be naked together a lot more. You feel so good against me."

"Mmm," Maura started letting her hands wander as we kissed, already looking for more. She wasn't kidding when she agreed after I called her insatiable the day before. "We could always have Naked Saturdays."

"Ooh, I like that idea."

"I'm not sure your mother would, though."

I pulled away from her, grinning but also slightly frustrated. "You did not just bring up my mother during intercourse."

"You just said intercourse," Maura said, pointing at me.

"Sex. Coitus. Whatever, Maura! We don't talk about my mother during sexy time, got it?" I poked her in the sides to make my point.

She laughed at my obvious discomfort. "Okay."

Maura stepped away from me and got into the tub.

"Jane! This water is scalding hot!" she cried out as she eased herself down into the tub anyway, cringing.

"It started boiling when you took your clothes off Maur," I joked.

She smiled at me and waved me toward the tub. "Come in. But be careful, this water is really too hot."

"I need it hot. It helps with the muscle spasms. I'm really hurting today."

"Why didn't you say something?" she asked, surprised, as I settled myself in the water. I leaned back against her open arms.

"I hurt every day, Maura. The intensity of the pain just varies with how physically active I am the day before. There's no point in complaining about it," I said with a small shrug. Aches and pains had been a part of my life for a long time, since right around when Hoyt had pinned me to the floor with two scalpels. Shooting myself a few years later, and then this accident, hadn't caused the number of daily aches and pains to dwindle.

"But you could tell me, so I could help you to feel better," Maura whispered against my ear.

"Just being around you makes me feel better," I said honestly.

She kissed the back of my neck. "Still, if you don't feel well, or if something is bothering you, you should tell me. You don't have to keep that to yourself."

"I don't want to come off as a whiner."

"Jane. You used to whine if there wasn't enough fluff in your peanut butter sandwiches. I put up with that then, I can certainly put up with you whining if you don't feel well now."

I sat up to look at her. "You put up with me?" I smiled to take the sting out of my words.

"I probably could have phrased that better," Maura said quickly.

I grunted as I turned back around.

"It's okay, Maura. I still love you anyway."

She laughed, then took the facecloth and soaped it up, washing my back. I leaned back against her, halfway through, spreading suds all over the front of her.

"Hey!" she squealed. "I wasn't done!"

"I know. But I just want to soak for a bit. Hold me."

"Gladly." She leaned back against the tub and wrapped her arms around me. She picked her legs up out of the water and wrapped them around me too.

"This is nice," I said, and she sighed in contentment from behind me.

"It's better than nice," Maura said. "I've waited years for this moment. It's like coming home, Jane."


	44. Chapter 44

**A/N:** When I wrote this fic, I wrote it in three parts, because it was so long that it was making Google Docs crash. Today CharlietheCAG remarked to me that this chapter is the start of part three, which means we're in the home stretch. 13 more chapters after this, including the epilogue. Thank you to each of you reading this for coming along on this journey. And thank you to Charlie, who has beta'd everything from chapter 3 on. I'm amazed at her patience and fortitude. ;)

* * *

When the water started to cool off, we both washed up quickly and got out of the tub. Maura walked with me back out to the bedroom and over to the bed.

"Sit for a minute, I'll go grab you some clothes from the guest bedroom," Maura said sweetly.

I sat on the side of the bed, wrapped in a towel, legs bent at the knees and feet firmly on the comforter. I looked over at Maura's cream on the bedside table and thought briefly about using it. Maura, towel still wrapped around her own torso, came back less than a minute later with two outfits, and all thought of moisturizing quickly vanished.

"I thought, since we were going to be home today, casual might be best."

She held up a pair of BPD sweats and a BPD hoodie in one hand, and a pair of jeans and a sweater in the other.

"The sweats," I said, smiling.

She walked them over to me. I grabbed her instead of the sweatpants and planted a kiss on her lips. "And I'm going to pay you for that other outfit. I _know_ that outfit wasn't here when I came home last week," I said as I let her go. "We talked about this, Maura."

Maura shook her head.

"Don't lie to me, Maura Isles. I am not spending the day rubbing calamine lotion on your hives."

"No, I was saying no that you won't pay me for it," she argued, letting her voice drop seductively.

"Oh yes-"

Maura cut me off by placing a finger against my lips and narrowing her gaze at me.

"Besides, you'd enjoy rubbing me down with cream, wouldn't you?" she purred.

I growled, and yanked the towel off of her. She shrieked in delight, and pushed me back, so I was now laying perpendicular to the head of the bed. She quickly climbed up on top of me, and started kissing me. She dropped the clothes she'd been carrying onto the floor and pinned me down, placing all of her weight on top of me.

I saw stars, but the feeling of having her pressed up against me quickly outweighed the pain of having her on top of me. How many times had I dreamed of her doing exactly this to me? I still couldn't believe it was really happening.

"You just wait, Jane Rizzoli. You're going to be the best-dressed detective on the force," she said to me as she kissed me.

"Oh, so I'm your little dress up toy now?" I asked, waggling my eyebrows so she knew I was kidding.

She kissed me seductively, leaving me breathless. "I'm pretty sure that I could convince you to do just about anything, including letting me dress you up."

"You may be right," I said, and then groaned when Maura's thigh pressed hard against my center. I lifted my thigh a bit to give Maura something to press against herself. Her eyelids fluttered shut at the contact.

"I think we should just have Naked Saturday today, like we talked about," Maura said as she ground against me. She was already wet, and truthfully, so was I.

"Yeah, forget the clothes," I murmured, kissing her again. I pressed harder against her, ignoring the pain in my muscles and bones in favor of the pleasure coursing through me.

"Mmm…" Maura moaned in agreement, reaching back and placing her hand under my thigh, adjusting it slightly as she settled herself against me. She sat up a bit, taking some of the pressure off of my pelvis, and some of the pain I was feeling abated. Maura's contact with my center made me forget all my pain anyway.

Maura had just started a steady rhythm against me when we heard a door slam downstairs.

"Girls?" my mother yelled. "Are you up yet?"

Maura and I groaned in stereo.

"Hurry up and get dressed before she comes up here," I muttered.

"She wouldn't," Maura replied, appalled at the idea and hesitant to stop what we had started. The two of us had been so close. So. Close.

"Oh yes, she would," I groaned, trying to sit up with Maura still on top of me.

"Girls? Are you all right?" Ma sounded like she was closer to the foot of the stairs.

"Be right down, Ma!" I yelled, and regretted doing it instantly because it hurt my throat so much. Had it really only been a little more than two months since I'd tried to yank out my breathing tube?

"We are _so_ going to have to set up some ground rules and boundaries," I said to Maura.

"I'll buy her a house somewhere else," Maura said quickly.

"Don't you dare," I laughed. "But ground rules. We need ground rules."

Maura got up off of me reluctantly, leaving a wet kiss on my neck before picking up the clothes she had dropped onto the floor. She was dressed first and waited for me to finish so she could help me down the stairs. I ached so much that we had to stop halfway and let me sit on a step. Ma looked on sadly from the foot of the stairs.

"Jane, I really hate to suggest this, but we need to get you your crutches back. You need them. I'm sorry," Maura added the apology at the end, knowing how much I hated the idea.

"It's just for your safety," she reassured.

"I know. And with the way I'm aching right now, I wish I had them."

"Are you still in pain?" Maura's face was full of concern.

"Nothing more than usual, I promise. I may take some Ibuprofen when we get downstairs. We s_hould_ look into getting me a new set of crutches though, as much as I hate to admit it."

"We'll go out and get some today." We stood back up and walked the rest of the way down the stairs.

"Morning Ma," I said to my mother as we finally made it down. I kissed her cheek.

"Morning!" she said cheerfully. "Girls, I was just going to the market and wanted to know if you wanted to have a Sunday dinner here tomorrow."

Maura and my mother both looked at me.

"That depends. A normal Sunday dinner? Or are you going to parade me around in front of everyone I've ever met again?" I asked sharply.

"Just a normal Sunday dinner. Your brothers, Kosak, Frost and maybe TJ if it's Tommy's weekend with him. And maybe Sean too, if that's okay," Ma said contritely.

"You and Cavanaugh have been getting quite close, haven't you?" I asked. Although my point was to give my mother a hard time, secretly I was happy for her. She'd had difficulty when he'd pushed her away years before.

"He's been rather… supportive, since you were hurt," Ma said evasively. I gave Maura a knowing glance.

"Should I start calling him Daddy?" I asked sarcastically.

Maura giggled next to me, and I cracked up.

"What? No! No, Janie," Ma said, blushing.

"Let's have dinner tomorrow, and invite Cavanaugh. He's family too, I suppose," I said calmly. I didn't mind having Cavanaugh there at all.

Maura gave me a squeeze around the waist and we smiled at my mother.

"Ma?" I asked.

"Yes, Janie?"

"Remember yesterday when I came home and we were talking, and I mentioned that this was kind of like a honeymoon phase for Maura and me?"

"Yup."

"Remember how I used the term _honeymoon_?" I reiterated.

"Oh, are you two getting married?" Ma gushed.

"NO! Not yet. But we kind of need to set up some ground rules,"I said firmly.

"Ground rules?"

Ma had been barging in on people for so long that she clearly had no idea where I was going with this.

"You need to call before you come over. Or knock on the door. Or, you know, not just walk right in."

"What? Oh!" Ma blushed. "Did I interrupt something?"

"Yes," I said gently, rather embarrassed.

"Oh my. I, um, well! I uh, I didn't even think. Can you even do that in your condition?" Ma blurted out.

"Very well actually," Maura answered for me, and it was my turn to blush.

"Jeez girls, I'm sorry. I didn't think. I'm sorry," Ma said, blushing as well.

"It's okay. Just, give us some privacy, all right?" I kept my tone gentle, not looking to start an argument. Ma did technically live there too, but she had to start taking into account the change in my relationship with Maura.

"Yes. Oh, this is embarrassing," Ma said quickly.

"Ma, you know you don't get embarrassed," I pointed out.

"I don't, but you two do. You're both bright red! Anyway, do you want something from the market?" And just like that we had moved on to a new topic.

"Well now that Jane is home, we should go grocery shopping. We need to pick up a new coat for her too, and some boots, so maybe she and I will just go shopping later," Maura suggested. "But thanks for offering, Angela."

"Okay," Ma said, pleased that we didn't seem too angry with her. "I'll pick up the makings for gnocchi tomorrow night and I'll call to invite everyone over. Have a good day, girls!"

"Ma, remember what I said!" I called as she started to walk away.

"I will," Ma said, turning to smile at us before turning back toward the door again.

Ma left and I looked over at Maura. "I think that all went in one ear and out the other."

"Let's give her a chance. If she continues to barge in, I'll buy her a house. In Vermont," Maura wisecracked.

I laughed at Maura's quip, and kissed her lightly.

"While you were sleeping this morning, I cleaned these up a bit for you." Maura handed me my debit card and my driver's license. They still looked like they had been bled all over, but they were far better than they were the night before. "I thought maybe you'd like to have them, at least until we can get you replacements. I also took the liberty of ordering you a replacement license online this morning," Maura said, pleased with herself.

"It amazes me that you know all of my personal information that's required to do that," I said with a smile.

"I know you better than anyone, Jane." Maura looked proud that she had come so far in our relationship that she knew me inside and out. I doubted that Maura had ever really loved someone the way she loved me, that she took the time to learn everything there was to know about me. She made me feel proud to be loved by her.

"That's true. How early were you up?" I had been disappointed to wake up without her.

"Six. I just couldn't sleep," she said with a shrug.

"Something on your mind?" I asked, worried about her reaction to seeing the bloody cards from the night before.

"You," she said with a smile.

"Is something bothering you?" I clarified.

"Nope. I was just too happy that you were home, it kept me from being able to sleep. So I got up, did a little yoga, and then worked on your cards."

"That was really sweet of you. But you should have woken me up," I nudged her gently with my elbow, showing her, rather than telling her, that I wanted to wake up with her every day.

"You're still healing. You need as much rest as possible," Maura said gently. "Really Jane, that's all. You know I'm an early riser. I just didn't want to wake you if you were sleeping so peacefully."

"Well, thank you, Maura." I leaned in and pecked her cheek.

"You're welcome," she said sweetly. "How about we go to a bank and see if that card still works, and then go out for breakfast? If you feel up to it, we can do a little shopping too," Maura offered.

"That sounds great."

Maura gave me an old coat of hers to wear, and I wore my sneakers out. The early March weather was still cold and wet, but there was no snow on the ground at the moment, and that made getting around much easier.

Our first stop was at an ATM in town. I dipped my card into the slot and grinned in happiness when the machine read the magnetic strip and then asked me for my PIN. I checked my balance first, relieved to see there was still more money in there than I had anticipated, but dismayed to see my settlement from the NYPD hadn't been deposited. I mentioned to Maura that we should ask Walter Laffler about that when we made an appointment to see him. Maura agreed and then turned her back to me while I withdrew some cash. She didn't want to see my balance, and she didn't want to see how much I took out. I appreciated that she gave me that privacy, though I thought it was a bit amusing that she would do that. I mean, she'd seen me naked, and we'd made love together that morning, but she felt my bank balance was a private matter. It was just another facet of Maura that I loved, and I smiled at her as I tucked the cash into my pocket.

We ate breakfast at the diner not far from the Common, where we had eaten the week before. It was amazing the difference a week could make. I didn't feel everyone's eyes on me as we made our way to our table in the back. I still limped, but I was less conscious of it. I still leaned on Maura a great deal, but I found as much comfort in the act as I did the necessary support to get around. Maura didn't seem to mind at all. I grinned at Maura when the check came and I was able to swipe it out of her grasp, and pay for breakfast. It was so satisfying to do that, and I'm sure Maura noticed.

Next we drove to a pharmacy, where we picked up a new pair of crutches. I paid for them myself, grinning once again at Maura, and tried not to be too dismayed at how much I was leaning on them as we walked out. I was still incredibly sore.

"Do you feel up to going shopping? They're predicting snow for the end of the week and I'd rather you have a pair of boots to wear," Maura said worriedly, looking up at the sky. "Those sneakers won't give you much traction, and they won't keep your feet warm if it snows again."

"Sure, let's go," I said cheerfully, surprised at myself for wanting to shop.

Maura drove us to a boutique she knew of, and I protested immediately. "Maura, I can't afford the clothes in there. Can't we just go to a department store? I can get snow boots and a coat in the same place for a reasonable price."

"There's a coat in here that's just perfect for you though. I really wanted to get it for you, as a surprise for when you came home, but you surprised me by coming home a little early," Maura said, flushing slightly in embarrassment. Ma had been right when she had said Maura wanted everything to be ready for my return home.

"Maura, haven't you given me enough? I mean, I'm so grateful to you, but now that I'm home, we're going to have to share expenses. As it is, you've paid for so much already. I cannot imagine how much my rehabilitation is costing you. I _know_ those bills are not completely covered by my insurance. I'm a burden to you financially, and I've only just come home. I can't ask you for anything more." I kept my tone gentle. I didn't want Maura to think I was ungrateful.

"But you're not asking. I'm giving. Come in and see the coat, Jane. I bet you'll love it. Oh, and they had the most adorable snow boots last week too!" She was so cute when she got happy about clothes. I had missed that about her.

"Maura, how much shopping have you been doing lately?" I asked, surprised.

"Well, sometimes I come down here on my lunch break. Sometimes I'll see something that reminds me of you. Sometimes I pick it up, and sometimes I just leave it, intending to come back here with you when you're able," she shrugged. "It's lonely having no one to eat with, Jane."

"Maura, that's so sad," I said forlornly.

"You'd think I'd be used to it. Before I ever met you, I was alone all the time," Maura said matter-of-factly.

"I don't think it's possible to get used to being lonely. I never got used to it. It only got worse as time went on."

"Were you lonely in New York?" I could tell that Maura was so curious about my time in New York. Probably as curious as I had been about her every waking moment while I had been away.

"Lonely was an understatement. But I was lonely in Boston, too. As soon as William showed up, I lost the person that made me the happiest. I never knew it was possible to be surrounded by people and still be completely lonely," I said quietly.

"I'm sorry, Jane," Maura said sadly.

"I'm not lonely now though," I said with a genuine smile.

"And soon you'll get well enough to come back to work, and we can eat lunch together again," Maura said cheerfully.

"And then you'll stop buying me clothes," I said mimicking her tone.

"I never said that," Maura smirked, and I rolled my eyes.

We made our way into the store slowly. I really needed the crutches that morning, and I was glad that we'd stopped off to buy them. Between tackling William, making love with Maura, and all the walking around we'd been doing, my pelvis was really protesting. I figured that this was good though, because it would really help accelerate my recovery. Exercises in the physical therapy room and in aqua therapy were good, but real life experiences would get me back on track faster than anything else, or so I believed.

Maura was right. The coat was beautiful, and it fit me really well. The dark red color seemed to accentuate my skintone. It was while I was standing in front of the mirror, trying on the coat, when I realized that my natural olive coloring was coming back. I wasn't yellow anymore. I certainly wasn't tan, but I looked healthier than I had looked that first day in rehab. Even the scars on my head were completely covered by the inch of thick black hair that had grown in.

The boots Maura had in mind for me were simple black leather, not at all unlike what I had been used to wearing before my accident. They had a sturdy rubber sole though, so I wouldn't slip in ice and snow. I had to give Maura credit. She really knew what I liked, and she was always looking out for me. The boots had a tiny heel, enough for me to feel like I had a heel on but not enough for me to lose my balance when I walked.

I was so busy peering at myself in wonder that I didn't realize when the sales assistant came back with the credit card slip for Maura to sign. What caught my attention was Maura saying "She'll wear the coat out of the store, but please package up her old coat and her new boots. Thank you."

I whipped around to look at her, and almost fell over.

"Take it easy, Jane. Don't fall," she chastised as she grabbed my waist to support me.

"Maura, this is a thousand dollar coat!" I growled, low enough to keep everyone else in the store from hearing me.

"And you're priceless to me," she said simply, her attention still on the credit card slip as she handed it back to the sales clerk.

"You can't just drop a thousand dollars on me!"

"I've 'dropped' a lot more than that on you, and I will not hesitate to do it again if I want to." Maura used air quotes around the word dropped, and it made me grin despite myself.

"I should pay you back. I will find a way to pay you back," I said resolutely.

"Like I told you that night in the rehab, I don't expect to be repaid. Just enjoy it, Jane." There was no bite in Maura's words this time. She was genuinely pleased to have bought me a gift.

"It's hard to enjoy something when you feel guilty about accepting it," I remarked.

"Think of it as a present celebrating your homecoming. And your dashing good looks," Maura said cheerfully.

"My what?"

"Don't think I didn't notice you checking yourself out in the mirror just now," Maura said with a sly grin.

"I wasn't. I was just… noticing." I was embarrassed that she'd seen me.

"Noticing what? That you look a million times better than you did a month ago? That you look positively stunning when you just let go and not worry about what other people think of you?" Maura asked, happily taking in all of the features of myself I had just been noticing.

"Maybe the first part. Partially. Not the rest," I admitted quietly.

"Well, all of it is true. You know I can't lie."

"God, I love you," I said to her, and hugged her fiercely.

"I love being able to tell you I love you," she said to me as she leaned in and gave me a tiny kiss on my cheek.

"I love that too."

We made our way out of the store and started walking back to the car.

"Do you want to swing by the market and pick up groceries?" Maura was still raring to go, but I'd had it. I was exhausted.

"Would you mind if we went home? I'm really sorry, but I just ache today. I don't know what's wrong with me." I hated admitting that. There was nothing I wanted more than to spend the day with Maura, doing anything she wanted, even if it was shopping.

"Probably overexertion," Maura noted clinically before smiling. "I have an idea. Let's go home, and get you settled on the bed upstairs. I'll start going through my closet to make space for your things in there. You can keep me company while you rest."

"Maura you don't have to make space for me in your closet. I know how precious your shoes and your clothes are to you. I can just use the closet in the guest bedroom." Closet space was valuable real estate to Maura Isles, even if the walk in closet in her bedroom was larger than the bedroom I'd had as a child.

"Nonsense. You're not sleeping in there, so why should your clothes stay in there? Also, I think it would be nice if we got a matching bureau for you for in our room. We can put it in the corner where the chair is. We can just move the chair to the guest bedroom for now," Maura said, happily making plans for making the space ours instead of just hers.

"I don't want you to feel like you have to make all these changes for me. I can just as easily keep my stuff in the guest room." The last thing I wanted to do was intrude even more into Maura's personal space.

"Oh, but I want to do this stuff. It feels so domestic and fun. Plus, spring is coming so I can do an early spring cleaning while I'm at it." Maura was in her groove, clothing and shoes and redecorating filling her thoughts.

"I just feel bad. I can't even help," I said disappointedly.

"You can keep me company though," Maura encouraged with a smile and a squeeze of my arm as she opened the car door for me. I got in and she closed it, going around to her side of the car to get in.

"It must stink though, to have to move some of your stuff back out so soon after you moved it back in," I continued when Maura had closed her own door.

"What do you mean?" Maura asked, looking puzzled as she started the car and we drove off.

"I mean after William moved his stuff out, you probably moved your stuff back in."

"Oh," Maura said, then shrugged slightly, her careful hands never leaving the wheel. "I never actually made room for him in my bedroom. He kept his things in the guest bedroom closet and bureau."

"Really?" I didn't believe it.

"Yes," she said simply, not elaborating.

"Why?" I asked, shocked.

"I never really thought about it. When it came time for him to move in, we just put his stuff in the guest bedroom. I don't think either one of us gave it more than a second thought."

"He never mentioned moving his stuff into your bedroom?" I asked, bewildered.

"Once. Very early on. I was actually on my way out to meet you, Frost and Korsak for dinner, and I told him we could talk about it when I got home. I was running late because I had been trying to convince him to come along and eat with us, and he was busy looking for excuses not to come. Now that I think about it, he never brought it back up."

"Huh," I said, puzzling over yet another clue that Maura and William's marriage may have been doomed even without my unintended help.

"I don't think I would have liked having his clothes in my closet," Maura admitted. "It would have felt like an invasion."

"But you don't mind having my things in your closet?" I asked, amazed.

"No, isn't that funny? Not only does it not feel like an invasion, it feels like the house is becoming a home."

"Maybe it was a sign, Maur," I exaggerated, not wanting her to pick up on the fact that I had thought her unwillingness to have William's things stored in the same place as her own had, in fact, been a sign.

"Maybe it was, Jane," Maura said, completely seriously. "I shudder to think of what life with him would have been like had I married him."

"He probably would not have become the jealous control freak that he turned out to be, because I would have been gone and he wouldn't have been jealous," I said stiffly.

"No, he would have shown his true colors at some point. And I would have too. Sooner or later I would have realized the mistakes I made. Sooner or later I would have found the courage to come and find you. I'm sorry Jane," Maura said sincerely.

"For what? You've got nothing to apologize for. You fell in love. I was too scared to tell you I loved you. Neither of us could have realized that this is where we would end up," I said honestly.

"But if I had said something-"

I interrupted her. "Maura, we can't go back in time. You told me that yourself. I really think that if William hadn't come into your life, we would still be dancing around the fact that we loved each other, and neither of us would have developed the courage to say it to the other. But he did come into your life, and we both realized how much we lost."

"It's terrible that it took you almost dying for this to happen," Maura said, her voice starting to waver.

"I wouldn't wish this on anyone, Maura. But I would do it all again if I had to. If it came down to reliving all of this and ending up with you, or be healthy but be without you, then I would pick you. Every. Time." It was the truth, and I hoped that she could hear it in my voice.

Maura turned to me and gave me a tender look before bringing her eyes back to the road. "I'm thankful every day that we're together."

"Me too," I said sincerely.

We pulled up to the house and Maura pulled the car into the garage. She walked around and helped me out of my seat, and we went inside together. She insisted that I go right upstairs and get settled on the bed. She fed the tortoises and let Jo Friday out, then came upstairs with a heating pad and some Ibuprofen.

"Why aren't you in bed?" she asked when she walked into the bedroom.

"I am," I said, gesturing almost cheerfully to my seated position on the bed. "I'm going to sit here and help you sort clothes and stuff."

"You should rest, Jane. Lie down and take some of the pressure off of your pelvis," she said, the doctor in her taking over.

"But Maura-"

"I brought you up a heating pad, you should use it." Maura was gentle with her suggestion but I knew she wouldn't take no for an answer.

She approached the bed as I stood up, so I could pull the comforter down.

"Will you lie with me for a little while?" I asked.

"Sure, if that's what you want." Instead of being disappointed about not getting started immediately on her closet, she gave me a broad smile. She looked forward to being with me as much as I looked forward to being with her, I realized. Even if it was just for a nap.

I laid down and curled up on my side, pressing the heating pad to my pelvis and relishing the relief the warmth it brought. I waited a moment for Maura to spoon up behind me, but she didn't.

"Hey!" I whined.

"What? What do you need?" she asked from her side of the bed.

"You."

"What?"

"Seriously Maura, you're the dumbest genius I know. Spoon with me!"

"Oh!" Maura laughed and rolled over, pressing a kiss to the back of my neck and wrapping herself around me.

"That's much better." I relaxed almost as soon as she snuggled up against me, and within minutes I was fast asleep.


	45. Chapter 45

When I woke up several hours later, Maura had left the bed. There was a pile of clothes from her closet on the chair across the room, and several boxes of shoes under the chair and next to it. I realized that Maura had been quite productive while I had been sleeping, and I felt bad that I'd fallen asleep and didn't keep her company like she originally wanted. I could hear her downstairs in the kitchen, cooking and humming along to the radio. She paused whatever she was humming to talk to the tortoises.

"Well, look who ventured out from the heat lamp. I guess that's a sure sign that spring is on the way! How are you, Bass? Are you standing up to Acantha now? I notice she doesn't eat all of your strawberries anymore."

Bass must have continued ambling on his way, because I heard his shell knock into one of the high chairs around the island in the kitchen, and Maura mumbled an amused "clumsy fellow" at him.

"And you, Acantha? Are you looking for your mommy?" I heard Acantha hiss back at Maura.

I chuckled softly. I really did not pay enough attention to that tortoise. It was endearing how much Maura did, despite the tortoise's unpleasant personality.

I stayed in bed for a little while, content to just listen to Maura downstairs while she was so happy. I took stock of my aches and pains, and they were definitely more tolerable than they had been earlier in the day. After a few minutes, I got up, grabbed my crutches, and started to make my way downstairs to her.

Halfway down the stairs, I expected Maura to show up, coming to meet me. I could hear her in the kitchen though, continuing to cook. I was determined to make it down safely, on my own, and not disturb her from what she was doing. I didn't mind her help, and in actuality I loved having her arm wrap around me, but I just wanted to be able to make it downstairs on my own.

I gave a satisfied grunt when I made it to the foot of the stairs. I'd done it, and I didn't even have to stop and rest. _Take __that__, __stairs__,_ I thought with a grin.

"Hello sleepyhead. Did you have a nice nap?" Maura asked as I made my way into the kitchen.

I wrapped my arms around her waist as she swayed gently to the radio while standing in front of the stove. She hummed in contentment when I kissed the side of her neck.

"Darn it, you heard me coming, didn't you!" I joked with her, fully knowing that I sounded like an elephant coming down the stairs, and had no hope of surprising her.

"You're going to have to work on your sneaking up skills," she said playfully.

"It's hard to be stealthy like a ninja when you've got these crutches to make all that noise."

"But you made it down them by yourself," she said proudly.

"And you didn't come to check on me?" I asked as I realized what had just transpired.

"I figured you'd ask for help if you really needed it," she shrugged against me gently.

In that moment I was so grateful to her. She knew how fiercely independent I was before this accident happened, and I knew how protective of me she had become since I'd been hurt. But in that moment, she was giving me a shred of my independence back, and I loved her for it. I loved her for being there for me whenever I needed her, but trusting me enough to know I'd ask for help if I needed it. I imagined how much self-restraint she must have used to keep herself in front of the stove and not at the foot of the stairs, watching me and ready to run up and help if I so much as wobbled. She believed in me and my abilities, and it made me not only feel proud that I'd done the stairs alone, but also that she had that much confidence in me.

"I love you, did you know that?" I asked her.

"I do know that, but I'll never get tired of hearing it," she said sweetly.

I stood there with her, feeling her sway to the song on the radio, while she stirred our dinner with my arms still wrapped around her waist, my chin on her shoulder.

"Whatcha making?" I asked against her ear.

"Soup and salads. We never went to the market and I had planned on grocery shopping tomorrow. All I really had was some canned tomato soup and the makings for a crisp salad. I would have been better prepared for your arrival if I'd known you were coming home this weekend." Maura's tone was not harsh, but I could tell that she continued to feel unprepared for my unscheduled arrival back at home. I felt bad for surprising her like I had, but I knew that even she understood the circumstances that would not allow me to stay in that rehab any longer.

"I'm glad you didn't know. Then you couldn't go crazy preparing. You would have worried about it, I'm sure." My arms were still wrapped around her, and I kissed her cheek.

"I would have tried to make it perfect for you," Maura countered.

"You make it perfect just by being here, Maura. I'm glad I got to come home. I'm glad that home is where you are, with you."

She turned around in my arms and stood on her tiptoes to kiss me. We had gone from kissing to Maura having her hands under my shirt when the back door swung open.

"Oh! Oh! You two!" Ma screeched, covering her eyes and turning away from us.

"Ma!" I yelled, pulling away from Maura, who turned back to the stove to take the soup off, her face a bright shade of red. "What did I tell you about knocking? We just talked about that this morning! Did you forget already?"

"What? No! I was just here and told Maura I had a loaf of Italian bread to make garlic bread with, and I would run over and get it. I didn't know you were going to wake up and start groping each other in the ten minutes I was gone!" Ma's tone was defensive, and I was instantly contrite.

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't know you were joining us for dinner." I was doubly embarrassed then, both by being caught by my mother and then yelling at her for showing up when I thought she'd barged in, but really hadn't.

"Do you mind, Jane?" Maura asked me.

"Not at all. It'll be great to eat with you both. Let me help you with the garlic bread," I said, gesturing to my mother to hand me the loaf in her hands.

Maura gave me a sweet smile and Ma grunted as I took the bread from her.

"How was your day?" I asked Ma, trying to distract her from what she just walked in on.

"Good. I invited everyone over for tomorrow, and they all said they would be here. Maura and I put the leaf in the table while you were sleeping, to make room for Sean and TJ. And I went to the store and picked up the ingredients to make gnocchi. I'd love it if you would help me make them in the morning," Ma hinted.

"Sure. It's been a long time since we made gnocchi together." I was looking forward to doing that with my mother. It had always been such a sweet pastime for the two of us, after she'd taught me how to make them using her grandmother's secret recipe.

"I know. You didn't forget the recipe, did you?" Ma was being sarcastic, and I know her intention was not to hurt me, but her words cut like a knife.

"I did not forget anyone, or anything, when I went to New York. If anything, the memories of all of you were amplified while I was there." My response was dangerously quiet, the way I got when I was ready to lash out. "I don't know how you could even joke about that," I growled.

Maura swung around to look at me when she heard the tone of my voice, and Ma cringed, instantly defensive.

"Janie, I didn't mean-"

"Ma, I know you didn't mean anything by what you just said. But you have to understand something: I was suffering long before I got hurt on that train. I spent a year and a half watching Maura love someone that wasn't me, trying to make sure she was happy and taken care of even though it killed me to do it. And I spent six miserable months in New York, in complete isolation from the people I loved, because seeing you all happy while I was so sad was like torture to me. But not one single day didn't go by without me thinking about all of you. You all thought I abandoned you, and in a way, I did. But you all abandoned me too. I spent half a year there, and not one of you came to find me. Not one of you reached out to see what was wrong or why I really left, even though you all knew deep down it wasn't for the money. Not one of you ever thought to question why I picked up and ran away, or why I would stay away for so long. You just let me go, and were angry at me for leaving you. That hurts more than all of my physical injuries combined!"

"Jane, I'm sorry," Ma said, stepping forward to hug me.

I turned away from her, avoiding her embrace. "So do you understand why I get so angry when you make jokes like that? Thinking that I would forget the people and the things that are the most important to me?"

"I do now, and I'm sorry," Ma said quietly, doubly dejected by my refusal to let her touch me.

"You just stayed mad at me for so long!" I yelled, not even realizing it. "You were mad at me even when I woke up, when I couldn't face Maura. And you hid everything that happened to her from me! You took her side in all of this. _I__'__m_ your daughter! I _know_ you love her, as much as I love her, but _why_, Ma? Why didn't you see what was happening? Why didn't you care?!"

"I thought you were being selfish and stubborn, Jane. You told me you were leaving because they offered you a job for more money. I didn't know it was because you loved Maura and couldn't watch her get married. _I__didn__'__t__know_." She wiped at her eyes hastily, with the back of her hand, much the same way I usually did when I was upset but didn't want someone to see me cry.

"You were right when you told me I didn't know the half of it. I'm sorry I didn't. I let you go because I was angry with you. But you're right, I should have reached out. I didn't, and I'm so sorry. I'm sorry that it took you getting so hurt for me to realize that you needed me. And I'm sorry I pushed you so hard in the beginning to make things right with Maura. I'm sorry, Jane."

Maura had taken the soup off of the stove and was standing in the corner of the kitchen, sobbing quietly as she watched the exchange between my mother and I. Ma stood between us, watching us both cry while she cried herself. She looked torn about which one of us to grab first.

"Maura," I rasped, and held an arm out to her. She just stayed in the corner, and wrapped her arms around herself while she sobbed. "Maura!" I cried again, and she finally crossed over to me. I wrapped her up tight, in my arms, my heart breaking with each new sob that she let out. I had already made my peace with Maura, but my tirade with my mother had just reopened all those wounds, for all of us.

"Ma," I said, reaching out for her too. She wrapped us both up in her arms.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to us both. "I'm so sorry. Please know that I love you both. I would do anything for you. Long before all of this, I considered Maura my daughter too. Now our family is stronger than it ever was before. But I'm sorry for letting you down, Jane. I am so sorry."

We stood there for a few minutes, with Ma rocking us back and forth like we were babies. When Maura's sobs began to subside, I pressed a kiss to her cheek.

"I'm sorry, Maura. You and I made our peace. I didn't mean for you to be so upset. I didn't mean for you to think that my anger was directed at you. I'm sorry I upset you."

"I just hate seeing you so angry and hurt, Jane. I'm sorry I never went after you in New York. I'm sorry I didn't tell you what happened as it was happening. I'm sorry for everything," Maura said hoarsely.

"We're okay, Maura. Please don't be so upset. Please. And Ma, I'm sorry too. I don't know why I reacted like that. You never meant anything by what you said, and I, well, I overreacted. I've been doing that a lot lately. I've noticed it, and I'm sure you have too. I'm working on that, but I'm sorry for how I treated you both just now."

"You reacted like that because you had unresolved feelings that needed to be acknowledged," Ma said to me gently. "I understand now where you're coming from. I really mean it that I'm sorry, Jane. I'm going to try and be a better mother to you. I'm not going to let you go through anything like that again on your own."

"You've always been a good mother." I meant it, when I said that to her. I hoped she understood that. "You smother me sometimes, and sometimes you push me to do things I don't want to do, but always had good intentions when you do the things you do. You love me, and you show me that every day. You've _always_ been a good mother."

"I love you girls. I love you both so much," Ma said as she squeezed us. "You're my family and you mean the world to me."

"I love you too," Maura and I replied to her in unison.

"Go get cleaned up. I'll make us some garlic bread and put the soup and salad into bowls," Ma said, gently shooing us away. I could tell she needed a minute herself.

We nodded, and I walked with Maura over to the bathroom that she had off of her dining room. The one usually reserved for guests, where I had hidden Paddy Doyle's sketch of Hope Martin all those years before. Maura closed the door behind us, and I put the lid down on the toilet so I could sit.

"I'm sorry," I said to her as she removed a facecloth from under the sink and wet it under the faucet.

"You have no reason to be sorry. You were honest. You spoke your feelings," Maura said genuinely. "You need to do more of that, you know. You can't keep things like that bottled up."

"And I hurt you when I said those things," I pointed out. "I meant it when I said I'm trying to get better with that stuff. My intention wasn't to hurt you."

"No, I know that it wasn't your intention. You just made me more aware of the truth, Jane. I'm not mad at you. You should know that," Maura said as she washed her face with the facecloth.

"I don't know why I reacted like that. I don't like that I was so mean to my mother," I answered, genuinely puzzled. I really felt like I'd had no control over what was coming out of my mouth as I had yelled at my mother. It was spewing out of me with little thought and absolutely no control.

"You apologized, and she apologized for hurting you. I think you're both okay," Maura reassured me quietly.

"But why did I yell like that?"

"Because you've got years' worth of pent up hurt and resentment, and it makes its way out sometimes?" Maura said with a shrug. "It happens to everyone."

"And if I don't get it under control, I'm going to continue to hurt the people around me," I said, resentment filling my voice.

"I would agree that there was probably a better way to go about expressing your feelings, but what's important here is that you opened up, and you resolved something that was bothering you, even if you didn't know it was bothering you," Maura said, stepping toward me with the facecloth. She started wiping my face.

"I can do that," I mumbled, my speech garbled by Maura's use of the cloth on my face.

"Please let me, it makes me feel useful," she said quietly.

"When have you ever not been useful?" I asked her, resting my hands on her hips as she bent over to wash my face.

"I can think of a two month span where I felt pretty useless while you were in Hartford, comatose," she said bitterly.

"You were _not_ useless. I know you were not just sitting around, doing nothing. You went to Hell and back to save me," I said with conviction. I'd gotten a glimpse of the Maura that had been around while I was in a coma a few days earlier at the rehab, as she had ripped into the staff there for not keeping me safe.

"The waiting was the worst part," Maura said quietly, interrupting my thoughts. "I wanted to help. I wanted to make sure you were all right, but all we could do was wait for them to say your brain wasn't swelling, and for your injuries to start healing. When they told us you were out of the woods as far as your head injury and your infection, all of us were elated. But then they told us they were going to keep you sedated while the rest of your injuries started to heal, and it was like they had taken away all the hope they had just given us. It was like some terrifying rollercoaster and there was no end in sight to the ride. Every time they told us about one area where you were making improvement, they warned us about something else that could go wrong."

Maura had stopped wiping my face and was now wringing the damp facecloth between her hands in nervousness.

"I'm sorry, Maura. I can only imagine what it must have felt like for all of you. I don't know what I would have done if it was you in that bed instead of me. I don't think I would have known what to do, or who to go to for help. Thank you for being there. Thank you for saving me."

"Since I couldn't be there with you in person, I used to talk to you, as if you were here with me," Maura continued quietly, almost as if she hadn't heard my thanks. "There'd been a time, for a few weeks, when your mother didn't want me there. I'd gone out of my way to make sure she had no power to take you off of life support, and until she understood that you were going to be all right, she was rather angry with me. That, and I'd missed so much work already, that I couldn't go down to Hartford again right away. So instead, I talked to you from here. I know it sounds silly. But I'd tell you that if you'd just wake up, and be all right, we'd find a way to work things out between us. I used to tell you that I loved you, and if you opened your eyes, I'd finally tell you that in person." Maura sighed, her eyes starting to well up again at the memories.

I raised a hand and cupped her cheek. "You kept your promises, Maura."

Maura gave me a weak smile as she continued speaking. "It was pathetic. I can't imagine what people would have thought of me if they'd heard me talking to you, as if you were there with me. I mean, you couldn't hear me. We weren't even in the same state, let alone the same room. I think I did it just to give myself hope. Hope of what could be if I had a second chance with you. I wouldn't let myself think of what I would do if you rejected me. I was so afraid you'd think you were my second choice."

"I honestly think that if you'd come to me right after William walked out, I would have thought that. But you've more than proven that you love me, Maura. I'm not concerned with who was your first choice," I said reassuringly.

"You always were though. I tried to take the easy way out with William. I loved him, Jane. But I loved you first, and I should have let you know that. I should have been braver. I should have pursued you, instead of him."

I returned the weak smile Maura had given me moments earlier. "I should have let you know, too."

There was a knock on the door. "Girls?" Ma asked quietly. "Are you all right in there?"

Maura opened the door and smiled at Ma.

"Yes. We seem to have these heart to heart conversations in the oddest places sometimes," Maura said with a stifled laugh as she handed Ma the facecloth to wash her face.

For a moment after my mother finished cleaning up, we stood there awkwardly. None of us knew what more to say.

Then my stomach growled.

"That's a sign that we need to sit down and eat," Ma said, and she held her hands out to me to help pull me up off the toilet lid.

I didn't hesitate to take them and let her lead me out, an arm around my waist.

"I meant what I said, Ma. You've always been a good mother. I really am sorry for saying what I did," I whispered to her as we made our way back to the kitchen.

"You don't have to be sorry for speaking the truth Janie," Ma whispered back. "Just know that I will never let you walk away like that again. Ever. You're my daughter. I love you."

She pecked my cheek as she helped me into one of the tall chairs around the island in the kitchen. Maura took the seat next to me, holding my hand, and Ma set steaming bowls of cream of tomato soup in front of all of us.

"Mmm," Maura said after her first spoonful.

"If there was ever a night for comfort food, this is it," Ma remarked.

"I'm glad I get to share it with the two of you," I said, as I dug into my own food. It was true. I was glad. And lucky. And thankful for the two women in the room with me. I had no idea where I'd be without them.

* * *

**A/N:** Thank you CharlietheCAG. You're always such a terrific super-ninja-beta. ;)


	46. Chapter 46

Very early Sunday morning, I woke up tangled up in Maura. I was half on top of her, with one of my arms, which was now fast asleep, tucked under her pillow, and the other splayed across her stomach. Our legs were wrapped up between each other, and we'd kicked the blankets off the bottom of the bed as we slept.

Considering that the two of us had fallen asleep after making love the night before, we were both stark naked, and I shivered involuntarily in the cool air.

Maura felt it and woke up. Her expression when she woke up to find me looking back at her was enough to make my heart feel like it fluttered down into my stomach. In that moment, she reminded me so much of a child waking up on Christmas day and realizing Santa had been there. I grinned at her.

"You're beautiful when you wake up," I said to her. "I don't recall you waking up so happy in the past."

"That's because you're here now," she said quietly, pressing her lips to my neck, just under my ear.

"I've woken up with you in the past," I said knowingly. "How many nights did we spend on your couch together?"

"Yes, but you were never naked and we didn't have sex on three separate occasions within a twenty-four hour period before," Maura said matter-of-factly, her grin spreading even wider.

"I see," I said, grinning back. "I don't think I've ever had this much sex in such a short period of time," I admitted.

"We have a lot of lost time to make up for." She gave me a sly grin, and was just leaning in to kiss me when her cell phone rang on the nightstand behind her. I recognized the ringtone, and knew it was dispatch calling her. She gave me an apologetic look and I sighed as I rolled over away from her so she could reach over and grab her phone.

For a split second, I had expected my cell phone to ring too. I realized at that moment that I was going to be feeling like that a lot: itching to catch a case, and disappointed when Maura would get up to leave without me. Maura realized this too, and squeezed my hand as she answered the call. I listened to her end of the conversation with the dispatcher.

"Dr. Pike is on call this weekend," Maura said firmly.

"What do you mean, he's refusing to go to the scene? He's on call!"

I wanted to find Pike and shove my foot so far up his ass that he'd feel my toes wiggle against his tonsils. This was Maura's time off, something that had become a rare commodity for her. That man was a perpetual dick, as far as I was concerned.

"And Doctor Popov?" Maura asked. I could not hear the dispatcher's response before Maura started speaking again. "Fine. I'll be there within the hour."

Maura hung up and looked at me. I sighed.

"I'm sorry," she said simply.

"Duty calls."

"No, duty was supposed to call Dr. Pike. Do you know he is refusing to go to the scene because he wants to go to a breakfast buffet at Denny's and it ends in an hour?"

"How is that man still employed?" I asked, exasperated.

"His brother is friends with the governor, apparently. And Doctor Popov is getting pickled on vacation back in the motherland for the next two weeks," Maura said with an eyeroll.

"Well, you should go, because the sooner you go, the sooner you can come back. I'll help Ma get ready for dinner tonight. Will you call if you and the boys are going to be late?" I kept my tone encouraging. Maura was going to get called to scenes a lot. It was part of her job and we both knew it, and the last thing I wanted was for her to feel guilty for getting called into work.

"I will," she promised.

"I wish I could go with you," I said wistfully.

"I wish you could too, Jane. Soon though. Hopefully soon," she encouraged.

"Hopefully," I said, sadly.

Maura got up and pulled the blankets up from off the floor, covering me up. She pressed a kiss to my forehead. "I had such plans for this morning."

"Did you?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes, but I'm keeping them to myself. Maybe next weekend we can do them," she said with a wink.

"They won't interfere with Naked Saturday, will they?" I asked with a laugh and a raised eyebrow.

"Ha! No, they won't," she grinned.

"Good."

She gave me one last kiss and then walked into the bathroom. I wrapped the blanket tightly around myself and drifted off to sleep. I didn't wake up when Maura left, but there was a note from her on the nightstand when I woke up a little while later.

_I love you. _

The simplicity of the note combined with the truth in her statement made my heart feel like it was going to swell up out of my chest. I reached for my phone and sent her a single text:

_I love you, too._

Then I got up and filled the bathtub for a much needed soak in some very hot water. Afterward, I got out, got dressed, and made my way very slowly down the stairs into the kitchen.

Ma hadn't come over yet, so I made myself a bowl of cereal and sat at the kitchen island to eat it. I wondered how the opened box of Lucky Charms had found its way into Maura's kitchen. She would sooner kiss a frog than she would put that sugary cereal in her mouth. I made a mental note to ask her about them.

It was still early yet, just after eight o'clock. Once I was done eating and had washed and dried my cereal bowl and spoon, I used my cell phone to call over to my mother.

"What are you doing?" I asked her when she picked up.

"Just straightening up the house, why?"

"Would you mind taking me to the grocery store?" I asked her. "It'll probably take a while. I want to grocery shop for Maura."

"Sure. Give me twenty minutes and I'll be right over," Ma said cheerfully, happy to spend some time with me.

I took the list Maura had on the refrigerator and grabbed my debit card. I sat on the couch watching hockey on _Versus_ while I waited for my mother. She arrived not long after, knocking on the door before I called her in.

"I'll try not to take too long," I said to her as we pulled up in front of the grocery store. "I just figured since Maura got called into work today that I could help her with this. She had planned to grocery shop today anyway."

"That's sweet of you," Ma said, impressed with my thoughtfulness.

"Plus if I pay for it, I won't feel like she's buying everything," I pointed out smartly.

"Good thinking," Ma answered.

We each grabbed a cart and split the list in two, to save time. I picked up a few additional items that were not on the list, including a bouquet of flowers for Maura and some snacks that I enjoyed but knew Maura wouldn't buy for herself. She'd made her list thinking I was still going to be in rehab, but I knew if I had asked her, she would have bought the snacks for me. Since I was buying this time, I decided to stock up.

About an hour later I met my mother in front of the self checkout and I paid for everything, including a few odds and ends my mother had found for herself. It was the least I could do for my mother at that point.

Ma told me the bouquet of flowers were romantic. I decided not to tell her about the racy greeting card I'd gotten as well. We loaded up Maura's Prius and headed back to her house, where Ma and I put all of the groceries away and I brought the bouquet up to the bedroom, along with the card, which I would write out later.

"Is Maura going to be home in time for dinner tonight?" Ma asked when I made my way back downstairs.

"She said she would call if she and the boys were going to be late."

"So, should we make the gnocchi?" Ma asked hopefully.

"Absolutely. Do you mind if I sit while we make it?" I asked, pulling out one of the chairs at the kitchen island. I was already exhausted, but there was no way I was missing out on making the gnocchi with my mother.

"Not at all. Sit. I'll get the ingredients together," Ma said happily.

We set about making the gnocchi, and I enjoyed pounding the boiled potatoes and adding the seasoning that was unique to my maternal great-grandmother's recipe. Ma mixed in the egg and flour, while I spread some flour on a large wooden cutting board and onto my hands.

Ma poured the mixture onto the cutting board and we both took some of the hot concoction and kneaded it, making our own separate piles of gnocchi dough. While it was still warm, we each pulled off fist-sized lumps and rolled them in the flour, then cut them into bite size pieces.

Typical of Ma, we wound up making enough gnocchi for a small army.

"I figured I'd make enough for next week too, and we could just freeze it," Ma said as she watched me look over the gigantic trays of the pasta and began wrapping one of them up to place in the chest freezer Maura kept in her garage.

"Good plan," I said, impressed with our finished product. It had been a long, long time since I felt like I'd done something so productive and been satisfied with the end results.

We had worked in a comfortable silence up until that point, and then all of a sudden the conversation began to flow.

"You know, Mr. Stanley is retiring," Ma said.

"I've heard. I think you should make a bid for the cafe. I think you'd do wonders with that place," I encouraged her.

"It's a lot of money, a really huge investment," Ma said nervously.

"How much does Stanley want for it?" I asked.

"He's asking $400,000, but Maura's financial advisor says the cafe isn't worth that, and we should try to talk him down to about $250,000."

"She's got her financial advisors in on this already, huh?" I wasn't surprised.

"Yes. It was very kind of her, though I felt funny accepting when she offered," Ma said. "She and I, we got really close while you were gone, Janie. But then I pushed her away when you got hurt and she tried to prevent me from taking you off of life support. I apologized to her, and we made things right between us, but after all of that, I felt funny even coming back to live here. She never made me feel unwelcome though, and she also volunteered the services of her advisors before I even thought about making a bid on the cafe."

"She's generous to a fault," I remarked, leaving out how curious I was about Ma's falling out with Maura while I was in a coma. Maura had never even mentioned it before the previous night, which made me think it was all water under the bridge at that point. Still, I was curious.

"I know. She also offered to co-sign on the loan. My credit's not bad, but I don't think I have enough credit to get that loan by myself," Ma said, interrupting my thoughts.

"When my settlement comes through from the NYPD, I could sign it over to you. You could use it to buy the cafe," I offered.

"I'd rather you keep that for yourself," Ma said gently.

"Why? I mean, if Maura's going to give you money, I could too." I admit, I was a bit disappointed that she didn't want my money.

"Because you might need that money, Jane. Maura's in a better position to help me with the loan. Then I'll be responsible for the bank's money, not yours and not Maura's money."

"I could give you a portion of the money, so you don't have to take out as big of a loan," I offered.

"We'll see, okay?" Ma said gently. "Let's see how much of a business loan I can qualify for, and whether or not we can get Mr. Stanley to negotiate down. If he doesn't come down on his price, it's unlikely to be a good investment."

"I'd like to help you as much as I can, Ma. I think it would be great if you owned the cafe."

"It really would be terrific. And once you go back to work, you, me and Frankie would all be there together. Maybe I could even get Tommy to work with me there," Ma said with a smile.

"Tommy seems pretty happy doing the contractor stuff," I reminded her.

"But I could probably pay him better than what he's making, and it would be more regular hours," Ma countered.

"Just keep in mind that if you offer him a job, he may turn you down. Don't be insulted by it," I said gently. I doubted that Tommy would want to work in the cafe. He seemed to be doing quite well in his current job, making friends and learning skills that would keep him employed. All he needed to do was get himself into a union so he could get health benefits, and he'd be set. I knew he was working on that, and was proud of him.

"I know," Ma said. "I just think the work in the cafe might be easier for him, that's all."

"When will you find out more?" I asked, changing the subject slightly.

"Maura's people are making inquiries with Mr. Stanley. They're going to try and feel out whether he has had any offers, and how negotiable he is. I warned them that he's very stubborn. They told me they would get back to me in a week or so."

"Good luck, Ma. I'm excited for you!" I _was_ excited for her. This was a big thing. Major. It was about time something good happened in her life.

"Me too. It's exciting but it's scary too," she admitted.

"If anybody can take that place and turn it into something wonderful, it's you," I said proudly.

Ma grinned at me. "Thank you, Janie."

We made ourselves each a peanut butter and fluff sandwich for an early, light lunch, and then started making the sauce and the meat to go with dinner. Provided everyone wasn't going to be late for dinner because of the case they'd caught, we would probably eat at about three o'clock, typical of an Italian-American Sunday dinner.

I sat there and rolled meatballs while Ma made the sauce. Once the sauce was simmering on the stove and the meat was in it, Ma told me she was going to go back to her place for a little while. I went upstairs and wrote out Maura's card, and placed it on the bed next to the bouquet I'd left on her pillow. The bouquet was small and the flowers weren't all that exotic, but I knew Maura would be happily surprised by the gesture. I wondered if she knew how many times I had wanted to bring her flowers before she'd met William. I wondered if she'd understood back then that the little random surprises like coffee in the morning or fudge clusters on tough days were not just things a best friend did. They were my substitutions for cards and flowers and kisses. I wondered if she ever wanted to bring me flowers. I wondered if any of the little random surprises she'd had for me back then were meant to be the same things mine were for her. She probably had meant them that way. There was something slightly reassuring in knowing that she did love me, even way back then.

I napped for a bit then got up and got dressed for dinner. I made my way downstairs and started heating the sauce up. I was just starting to boil the water for the gnocchi when Ma came back over.

"Don't tell Maura, but I took the best nap when I went back," Ma whispered conspiratorially.

"Me too! But why wouldn't we tell her?" I asked, puzzled.

"She doesn't seem like the napping type," Ma said, looking around, lest Maura spring up suddenly and overhear her.

"She's not home yet, Ma. And actually, she once told me that napping has several health benefits. I also know that she uses the couch in her office to catch some rest when she's sleep deprived. I just think she's too active to nap regularly," I said, proud to know Maura so well.

"Good to know," Ma said as she lifted the lid off the sauce. "Oh, that smells good."

"Yes, it does. I've got this if you want to set the table," I said, pointing to the stacks of Maura's china on the table. I figured it would be easier for me to stand at the stove and cook than it would be to make my way around Maura's table with her fine china. It would be hard to use the crutches and not drop the good dishes, I explained. Ma agreed and set off to set the table.

At around two-thirty the doorbell rang and Ma answered it. It was Frankie, carrying two cases of beer.

"Two?" I asked him as he made his way into the kitchen and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

"One of them is non-alcoholic. Since you still can't drink, I thought you might enjoy having a cold bottle of something that resembles beer," he said with a sheepish grin.

"Thanks brother, that's good thinking," I said, touched at his thoughtfulness.

We both knew it wouldn't be anywhere as good as the real thing but it was sweet that he had thought of me.

"I heard you knocked the daylights out of William," Frankie said as Ma opened the door for Sean Cavanaugh.

I paused before answering Frankie and pointed subtly at the front door, where Cavanaugh was leaning in to give Ma a peck on her lips.

"Gross…" Frankie whispered, childishly.

I laughed softly. "Careful, we may be calling him Daddy at some point."

"You think?" Frankie asked, pondering the possibility.

"Maybe. He seems to make Ma happy. He better not hurt her again though," I said threateningly.

"I don't think he will," Frankie replied, still whispering. "I think that seeing Ma almost lose you reminded him a lot of losing his son and wife, and it brought them closer together."

"Maybe," I said, partially convinced. I was going to need to see him with my mother more to make a final assessment.

I was a bit torn. My once and future boss was back to dating my mother, which would complicate things at work, if I was able to return. But at the same time, it made me happy to see my mother loved by someone. Cavanaugh definitely put a smile on my mother's face, and she deserved someone that would treat her better than my father had. In the end, I hoped that person would be Sean Cavanaugh.

Ma and Cavanaugh felt Frankie and I staring at them, and Cavanaugh gave us a little wave as he made his way into the living room.

"Sir," I said, waving as he sat down.

"Lieutenant," Frankie added before he started putting the beers in the fridge. "Would you like a beer?" he asked.

"I'd love one. Thanks, Frankie." Here in Maura's house, Cavanaugh was friendly and kind. Not that he wasn't at the precinct. But at the precinct he was boss to all of us. At Maura's, he was just part of the gang. He was trying hard to prove that, and I appreciated it.

Frankie took a beer out to him and they sat down to watch football on Maura's television. I stayed in the kitchen to cook, and Ma continued setting the table in between letting the rest of the family into the house.

Maura arrived home at about quarter to three, and made her way upstairs to get changed after greeting her guests and giving me a peck on the cheek. I followed her up, slowly, and waited in the doorway to the bedroom as she threw open her bureau drawers to look for a new outfit to wear for dinner.

"Messy scene?" I asked her. I thought the outfit she was wearing was fine for Sunday dinner and didn't see any reason for her to change.

"No, but I just don't like the idea of eating in these clothes after handling the body at the scene," Maura said as she took out a shirt and turned toward the bed.

"Jane, are those for me?" she asked when she turned and spotted the bouquet on her pillow.

"No, I bought them for myself," I quipped, grinning.

Maura tossed me a smirk over her shoulder before walking over to the bed and picking up the flowers and the card.

"Did you have them delivered here?" she asked me as she sat down and held the flowers up to her nose, smiling at me as she inhaled deeply.

"No, I picked them up at the grocery store. I know they're grocery store flowers but there's no florist near there," I said shyly.

"They're beautiful regardless Jane," Maura said sincerely. "Thank you for thinking of me. How did you get to the grocery store?"

"I asked Ma to drive me. I picked up everything that was on your list and a few other odds and ends I thought we could use. I wanted to make myself useful," I said with a shrug.

"Thank you, Jane!" Maura said, jumping up to give me a hug. I would never get tired of her hugging me.

"It's my pleasure," I said as I squeezed her. "Save the card for later," I whispered to her as we hugged.

"Oh, okay," Maura whispered back with a giggle.

Maura changed into a pair of jeans and a clean sweater, and reached out to wrap an arm around me for the trip back downstairs. I pulled her toward me and gave her a searing kiss on the lips. Maura moaned slightly against my lips, sliding her hands under the back of my shirt and pulling me closer to her with her hands on my bare back.

"I missed you today," I told her as we drew apart after our kiss.

"I missed you too. I can't wait until we can go back to work together," Maura said, slightly out of breath from our kiss.

"Me too, Maur," I grinned at her, enamored with the smile she was giving me. I wondered, idly, if we had time for a quick romp before dinner.

"GIRLS! Dinner!" Ma bellowed up the stairs. There was my answer.

"That woman," I groaned, and Maura laughed as she helped me down the stairs. I knew she'd been asking herself the same question before Ma had yelled up for us.

I have to admit, dinner that night was fantastic. It was more than just being surrounded by my family. It was more than just the laughter that rippled back and forth across the table. Part of it was enjoying a meal I had helped to create from scratch, something I hadn't done in many months, and sitting next to Maura.

I'd never really taken much pride in cooking before. It was something I had always done simply because I needed to eat. I cherished my mother's recipes and I tried to cook to her standards, but I never considered myself a chef. Ma was the cook of the family, plain and simple. But several months before that night my independence had been stripped from me, along with my career. Cooking with my mother that day helped me to realize that I was still capable of some of the things I had done before my injury. I realized for the first time that night that my entire life hadn't been stolen from me. Sure, there wasn't anything I wouldn't have given to go back to the way I was physically before I was hurt, but I realized that night that I was still capable of many things, and that my life was far better at that point than it had been in nearly two years.

The other highlight to that night was Maura. Maura and I had sat next to each other at every Sunday dinner since we'd started them years before. What made it different was that night, for the first time in Sunday Dinner history, Maura was mine, and I was hers. I had nothing to hide from her, and she had nothing to hide from me. There were no more secrets. And no more fiancés, either.

In between forkfuls of gnocchi and sips of my non-alcoholic beer (which, I had to admit, wasn't as bad as I had thought it was going to be), I let my hand drop to Maura's thigh under the table. She'd squeeze my hand every now and then, or she'd rub circles on my thigh just above my knee. We would grin at each other occasionally, when something in the conversation would remind us of an inside joke we'd shared between us at some point.

"So I think it must be a Rizzoli tradition, chasing perps, and having their pants rip away to reveal that they're not wearing any underwear underneath," Frankie was saying.

I heard him, and I'd even started to laugh at him, but I'd gotten caught up in Maura's gaze, and we were both just kind of mesmerized by each other. We'd all but forgotten there were other people in the room with us.

"Would you look at that?" Frost said from the opposite end of the table. I could hear the grin in his voice.

"Yeah, you two, get a room!" Tommy barked, his mouth full of gnocchi that he continued to shovel in even as he was speaking.

"Tommy!" Ma yelled, and Maura and I snapped out of it. "You two really are adorable," Ma added when we'd both looked down and blushed.

"Yeah, you're right, Frankie. Sorry," I said, tearing my stare away from Maura, but not before I'd squeezed her hand under the table. "It has become a Rizzoli tradition."

"I wonder what kind of stuff you're going to get into when you come back to work," Korsak mused out loud.

I looked down, afraid to acknowledge that I might not get into anything.

"Yeah, Jane. Maybe there's a three hundred pound tweaker's head for you to break a chair over," Frost added, trying to be encouraging.

"Yeah. Maybe," I said, getting up to clear my plate. "How about dessert? Tommy brought cannoli." It was obvious to everyone I was trying to change the subject.

"I'll do that," Ma said, getting up and taking the plate from me. "Sit. Relax," she whispered to me as she walked away.

I sat back down and felt everyone's eyes on me. Frankie came to my rescue.

"So, Janie, we hear you've been moved to outpatient therapy. You gonna stay here?" he asked.

"Yeah. It turns out that Maura's house feels the most like home," I said quietly, and smiled at Maura. She gave me a huge smile in return.

"What are you going to do when you're not in therapy?" Cavanaugh asked.

"I don't know. I guess I'm going to try to keep busy, somehow. I can't drive, so I probably won't go anywhere," I said, shrugging.

"You could learn Finnish," Maura suggested. "Since you didn't the last time you were laid up," she pointed out helpfully when I have her a puzzled look.

"Um, that's not really on my list of things to do," I said. I left off the "Really?" that had been begging to make its way out of my mouth.

"You could come work in the precinct, help out with the backlog of paperwork that these two have," Cavanaugh said, jerking his thumb at Frost and Korsak.

"I still have therapy five days a week though," I said gently, reminding him of what I'd told him the night Frost had taken my statement at the precinct. "And I'm not sure how I would get there since I'm still not allowed to drive."

"What if we sent some paperwork home with Maura every night? Simple stuff. Forms and whatnot. You could work on it and send it back with Maura whenever it was finished," Korsak suggested.

"Wouldn't I have to be reinstated for that?" I asked. "I can't just work on open investigations. Even simple paperwork is subject to chain of custody issues."

I watched Cavanaugh, Frost and Korsak exchange a look. Then Cavanaugh spoke. "Yeah, I guess you'd have to be reinstated for that. And you'd need a doctor's note for it. Why don't you talk to your doctor about clearance just for restricted desk duty? Then we could file the paperwork on our end and you could do administrative stuff, from here for the time being. It would be good to get you back on payroll."

I wondered what that look had been, between my old partners and Cavanaugh before he'd answered me. They all looked like they were about to say something. I mulled it over before I answered them.

"I see my doctor next week. I'll ask about it. It would be nice to have an actual paycheck coming in, and not disability payments."

"Good," Cavanaugh nodded, encouraged, and then glanced up as Ma came in with a carafe of coffee and started pouring cups.

Later on, when everyone had left and dinner had been cleaned up, I approached Maura before bed.

"What was that today, with Cavanaugh?" I asked her.

"What was what?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"That thing he did with Frost and Korsak when we were talking about me doing administrative stuff for them."

"I didn't see it. What did he do?" she asked me.

"He looked at them. Like he was telling them to keep quiet about something," I answered, replaying the moment in my head again.

"I didn't see it, Jane. I'm sorry. I don't know what they would possibly be keeping quiet about though," Maura shrugged as she pulled the covers down on the bed.

"I didn't like it. I mean, I get that I left and I don't work with them anymore, but I definitely felt like they were keeping something from me. Something important."

"I'm sure they weren't, Jane. They wouldn't do something like that. Please, come to bed." Maura tapped the bed next to her.

I made my way over and got into bed, and Maura rolled on top of me, snuggling in tightly and laying her head on my chest. She sighed in contentment, and I closed my eyes, but it took me a long time that night to fall asleep.

It wasn't just the apparent secret that Korsak, Frost and Cavanaugh looked like they were keeping at dinner. It was the prospect of starting outpatient therapy in the morning. The next leg of my journey was ahead of me, and I worried about what it would take to overcome it all.

Maura squeezed me in her sleep, as if she was reassuring me, and it was then that I finally let go of my thoughts long enough to fall asleep too.


	47. Chapter 47

**A/N:** Thank you to Charlie for the edits, as always!

My heart breaks for the family, friends, colleagues and fans of Lee Thompson Young. I hope he rests in peace.

* * *

The following morning started what would become a months-long routine for me. I'd get up at five-thirty every morning with Maura's alarm clock. I'd shower in the guest bathroom while she showered in the master bath, except on the days when we showered together and inevitably ran late. If Ma knew what had made us run late on those days, she didn't let on. Maura and I had developed a very active, very passionate sex life, and we often joked that the reason we did it so much was because we were making up for lost time. Both of us knew though, that we were just incredibly attracted to one another. That attraction had not faded at all in the months we were together. In fact, I think I loved her even more with each passing day. That thrill of seeing Maura walk into a room, or when some little action of hers would turn me on without warning was still there, and we were quickly learning that it would never leave. This is what it meant to be so completely in love with someone that your attraction to the other person only grew with time. It never waned.

After our morning routines, we would meet in the kitchen and have a quick breakfast together, because Maura refused to eat in the cafe since Stanley had let my mother go. I admired her resolve. She'd then pack a lunch, which I suspected she was keeping in the "dead fridge" in the morgue, and loaded up on healthy snacks that I was pretty sure she was giving to Frost and Korsak to keep them out of the cafe and keep them fed.

Most mornings my mother would drive me to outpatient therapy while Maura went to work. Some days Maura would get called to a scene in the middle of the night and would just be coming home as I was getting ready to leave, and on those days she would drive me to therapy. In the beginning I had protested a lot, because Maura needed to sleep, but she rationalized driving me by saying she'd missed me the night before. Truthfully, I enjoyed those days the most. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy riding into therapy with my mother driving, but the nights without Maura were long and lonely, and the half hour we spent in the car before she went home to go to sleep were tiny treasures for me. I'm pretty sure she treasured them too.

Every few weeks, Maura and I would meet up with Sara and her husband Jim for dinner. Sara had gone from my nurse to my friend. I found myself looking forward to her stories. She was an incredibly insightful, encouraging person, and I was lucky that Maura had chosen her to be my private nurse. In the beginning I'd thought I would grow to resent her presence at the rehab, but looking back, I realized how much of a role she played in my recovery in the time she spent with me, and I was incredibly thankful to her.

At some point I'd put my crutches down and just never picked them back up again. I still had to be more careful than most people going up and down stairs, but it had been ages since I'd needed to stop on the stairs and give my pelvis a rest. Maura no longer needed to wrap her arm around my waist when I walked around without my crutches. Sometimes she would still do it out of habit, but it wasn't a necessity anymore. I never discouraged her from doing it, even though I no longer needed her assistance to walk around. I had spent too much time longing for her arms around me, and now that we were together, I would never push her away. Sometimes she would catch herself doing it, and would let go sheepishly. I always pulled her back to me with a smile.

Over the course of those months, my therapy continued to evolve. Derrick no longer needed to remind me to watch my gait, and my limp was slowly beginning to go away. We had discontinued aqua therapy and were concentrating on strengthening my pelvis and working the limp out of my gait. One afternoon a week I would go up to the track on top of the rehab center and walk it for an hour. Once I started feeling more confident, I started to jog it. Derrick had even begun to jog with me, slowly and almost painfully, on the days I went up there. It wasn't even part of my therapy. It was just something I had started doing to keep active and to give myself something to do in the afternoons. He would just meet me up there and jog with me. He said it was because he liked to keep fit, but I knew he could run circles around me. I think what he really was doing was pumping me for information on what it would take for me to physically qualify for duty, and he was also secretly making sure I didn't get hurt.

In those three months I made progress in every way, but there were always setbacks, too. I fell in physical therapy one afternoon and wound up slicing open my forehead on a piece of equipment. I needed seven sutures, and had to be checked for a concussion. I wound up missing several days of therapy afterward because Dr. Grossberg wanted me to rest. I was embarrassed by my fall and infuriated with myself that I could let that happen. I hadn't fallen in therapy in months, and I'd simply tripped over my own two feet while doing a simple exercise. It had been an easily avoidable incident and I'd let it happen. Even though he never said it, I felt like I'd let Derrick down, and I felt like I'd let myself down too when I had to sit out of therapy for the rest of that week.

I also missed two entire weeks of therapy when, in late April, I caught a cold. Maura and Dr. Grossberg weren't the least bit surprised when the cold turned into severe bronchitis, and I wound up in the emergency room one night with a high fever and a low blood oxygen level.

I was admitted as an inpatient, despite my vocal protests. I was put on a potent mix of antivirals and antibiotics, and had to wear an oxygen mask for two days. Once the fever broke, I was discharged back home, but had to continue my medications intravenously.

I was so weak that Maura and Ma took turns watching over me, keeping me in bed and forcing me to rest. I was more than just upset that I was so sick. I knew with every day that passed without me doing therapy, I fell further and further behind in my recovery.

Catching that cold was a reminder that even though I was getting stronger with each passing day, I was a long way off from being a healthy adult. My immune system had been ravaged when my lacerated bowel had caused a massive infection, and even all those months later I was still more prone to disease than the people around me.

What was a simple illness to the people around me could quickly become life threatening for me, I'd realized. Maura, thank goodness for her, was so patient with me throughout all of it, even if I was a horrible patient and she was incredibly worried.

I was also making progress with my psychotherapy. I'd stopped looking at Dr. Gilfried as the enemy, and she and I had an understanding. She'd only push so far, and I'd make a better effort at engaging in therapy without sealing myself up. I think therapy had become easier for me as my physical therapy progressed, because with each new modality that Derrick and I worked on, I felt closer to being able to go back to work. No one had promised me anything by that point, and I knew I was nowhere near ready for my physical test to qualify for duty, but my confidence increased along with my abilities. The more confident I became, the more hopeful I became, and the easier it got for me to work with Dr. Gilfried. It never occurred to me, at that point anyway, that Dr. Gilfried was masterfully constructing that very scenario for me.

Some afternoons Maura would surprise me by picking me up from therapy instead of Ma, simply because she wanted to do something sweet. Sometimes it was because Ma was working with her financial advisors or meeting with the bank in order to negotiate the sale of the cafe from Stanley.

Stanley was being a royal pain in the ass about everything, and everyone involved with the sale was starting to get frustrated. Stanley constantly flip-flopped about the price of the cafe and his conditions of sale. It had taken months to negotiate him down to the true value of the cafe, and once they'd gotten him down to a price Ma could afford, he came up with a list of demands about how things were supposed to be handled once the sale was completed. Naturally the people working on Ma's behalf had objected to _any_ demands, because if Ma owned the cafe, she should be able to run it as she saw fit. This had caused weeks of back and forth between Ma's people and Stanley with little progress at all.

Maura's financial advisors were used to negotiating multi-million dollar transactions for very wealthy investors, and not one of them had come across a situation quite like the one Stanley was creating. Making matters worse, Stanley had a cousin that was a lawyer, and his cousin was drawing up the contracts of sale for Stanley. He was just as truculent and high strung as Stanley, and it was making everyone miserable. The only thing keeping the advisors from walking away from this "small fish" was that Ma had endeared herself to the advisors and none of them wanted to lose Maura's business, or the business of the Isles Foundation, should they drop Ma as a client.

I was proud of Ma for working so hard to get that cafe from Stanley. I knew she would really take that cafe to new heights if Stanley would just relinquish control and retire already.

Dr. Grossberg had initially refused to sign off on me doing restricted desk duty the first time I had asked her after that Sunday dinner with my family, and it really shocked me. She'd explained that I'd made terrific progress, but she wanted me concentrating on my therapies and not on working. She didn't want me seated for up to four hours an afternoon working on paperwork. She and Dr. Gilfried wanted me up and active when I got home, participating in things like household chores and reintegrating with my family.

I'd tried explaining that part of reintegrating with my family was going back to work, since everyone I was close to worked at the precinct in some fashion. They understood that, and they had tried to let me down gently. Regardless, it frustrated me a great deal, and I knew they sensed that, but they were steadfast in their refusals as I asked, repeatedly, to be put on restricted desk duty in the months that followed.

I think that's why, one sunny Friday afternoon, three months into my outpatient therapy, and about six months since I'd woken up from my coma, Dr. Gilfried and Dr. Grossberg surprised me by reducing my physical therapy from five days a week to three, and my psychotherapy to just once a week. Not only had I reached a point where I no longer needed daily therapy, but they were actually going to give me permission to work restricted desk duty twice a week for four hours each day. I was so shocked when they'd sat me down to tell me about it that I had to ask them to repeat themselves. Twice.

I had finally been given clearance to return to work, even in a severely restricted fashion, and I was thrilled. I couldn't wait to tell Maura, and I couldn't wait to call Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh had been asking about it every Sunday he came to dinner, and I felt bad telling him that the doctors had continued to refuse my requests. He didn't show me, but I could tell he was starting to get frustrated. Frost and Korsak were too. None of them would ever rush me into recovering, but they all wanted me back in any capacity they could get me.

The sweetness of the Friday they gave me the go ahead for desk duty only increased when Maura's Mercedes pulled up in front of the rehab, instead of Ma in the Prius. Maura grinned at me as I got in.

"Hey, beautiful girl," she said as I opened the door.

"Hey, Maur. What brings you here?" I asked as I buckled up and leaned over to kiss her.

"Quiet day. Thought I'd give your mother a break and pick you up," she said sweetly.

"It's always a wonderful surprise to see you, when you show up like this. I have great news!" I said as we drove off toward home.

We were about three quarters of the way home, and I was in the middle of telling Maura my new therapy schedule when Maura's phone rang.

"Dr. Isles," she picked it up, glancing at me apologetically before returning her eyes to the road.

"Can Dr. Pike cover for me? I'm not in the area."

She sighed.

"All right. I'm on my way. Hold the scene until I get there. It'll probably be closer to an hour, maybe an hour and a half."

She disconnected the call and looked at me. "I have to drop you off and then run to a scene. Dr. Pike is on vacation this week. I'm sorry. I thought we could spend the afternoon together. So much for it being a quiet afternoon."

"It's okay," I said. "It was sweet of you to come and get me. Where is the scene?"

"Blossom Street," Maura replied.

"Maur, we're about to go right past the exit we need to take to get there. Why don't you just take me with you to the scene?" I asked.

"You know I can't let you onto the scene, Jane. You'd have to wait in the car."

"I know, Maur," I said disappointedly. "I wouldn't compromise your scene though," I added quickly, when I saw Maura's shoulders tense.

"I could be there for hours, and it's nearly ninety degrees outside," Maura pointed out.

The June day was perfect, and even though I knew I'd be stuck on the sidelines, I wanted to go with Maura to the scene.

"Please Maura. Just take me there. I won't leave the car, except maybe to stand up if I get uncomfortable sitting. I know how long processing a scene can take and I swear I will not interfere."

Maura looked over at me and sighed. Then she flicked her turn signal on and took the exit toward Blossom Street. I grinned at her.

We arrived and she parked under a tree, at least a block from where everyone else was parked and a block and a half from the scene itself. She rolled down all of the car's windows so I wouldn't completely roast while I waited. I think that she figured the further away she parked her car, the less likely I'd be to show up outside of the crime scene tape. She was smart, because as we arrived there, I felt that same anxious feeling I felt before I visited every crime scene. It was a mixture of nerves, determination and a tinge of excitement. I repeatedly had to remind myself that I wasn't going to the scene. I was staying in the car, away from the scene and away from Maura. As badly as I wanted to be there, I would not do anything to compromise Maura and the other homicide detectives' case.

"I'll try to be quick," Maura said, reaching into the backseat for her ever-present medical examiner's bag.

"Don't," I replied, grabbing her arm and forcing a smile onto my face. "Don't rush the science for me. Work your scene and do your usual best. I'll be right here."

"I wish you could come with me," she said quietly. "I miss your insight on these things."

"Soon, Maura. Soon." I let myself feel hopeful. If that afternoon had proven anything, it was that I was on my way to going back to work, at least in some capacity.

"Call me if you need anything, or if you want me to have one of the uniforms take you home," she said as she started to walk away. She glanced once over her shoulder at me and I gave her a little wave before she walked to the officer on duty and flashed her medical examiner's badge. Then she made her way under the police tape and got to work.

I watched Maura work behind the tape from the distance where we were parked. I could barely make her out from so far away, but because it was Maura, I could always tell where she was. I yearned to be down there at that scene with her, but knew better than to go anywhere near the police tape. I couldn't interfere. It would be unprofessional, and it would compromise their entire investigation. I'd promised Maura I wouldn't go near the scene, and I was intent on keeping that promise, no matter how tempted I was.

Between the heat in the car and the workout I'd gotten at physical therapy, I started getting sleepy. After a while I let myself doze off in the car seat. When I woke up a while later, I was stiff and achy. I got out of the car to stretch my legs, using all of my will to keep myself from wandering down to the crime scene. Instead I walked a short way up the block in the opposite direction, and then turned back toward the car, giving my muscles a chance to stretch out. I leaned on the outside of the car instead of getting right back in, because it was so hot inside the car. Under the tree where Maura had parked the car was somewhat cooler than being in the direct sunlight, and even though it was a hot day, it wasn't entirely unpleasant. I looked up at the sky, taking in the deep summer blue and watching the puffy clouds float by for a little while.

As I leaned on the car, I watched a guy with a badge walking up the block. I watched him look me over, and I looked him over, trying to remember if I recognized him. I had no idea who he was.

"Hey, are you new?" I asked the guy as he started passing by. "I mean to the homicide unit," I clarified when he looked taken aback by my questioning.

"First week on the job. Why, is it showing?" he asked, looking back down the block toward the crime scene.

"No, it's just, I worked Boston Homicide for years and never met you. That's why I asked," I explained.

"Oh. I got called in to replace some chick that left," he said nonchalantly. "It's been a real baptism by fire. No training at all. I had to walk away from that dickwad Crowe before I punched him," he said angrily.

"Oh," I said quietly. No wonder Cavanaugh had been so relentless with asking if I could come back on desk duty. No wonder there seemed to be some secret going on between Frost, Korsak, and Cavanaugh that had started months earlier at a Sunday dinner. No wonder why Maura didn't want me coming to the scene with her, and why she'd parked so far away from the tape.

I realized that I was the chick that left. And I'd been replaced.

"Well, uh, nice meeting you, um, Detective…?"

"Rizzoli," I grumbled.

"I'm Klatsky," he frowned when I made no move to shake his hand or further the conversation. "Well, nice meeting you. Take care," he said, and continued walking up the block.


	48. Chapter 48

**A/N:** I'd just like to apologize in advance for any errors in tonight's update. Charlie did her usual awesomeness when it came to editing this chapter, but Google Docs, which I use to write and she uses to give me edits, was not working properly. We'd both go in to fix something, only to have it disappear the next time the document was opened. I _think_ we got all the edits done, but if something slipped through, I apologize for it. Hopefully Google Docs will be back to behaving properly by the next update. And thanks Charlie for all the hard work!

* * *

I felt sick to my stomach. How could they not tell me they'd replaced me? I had been working so hard on getting better, so I could go back to work with the BPD. I had allowed myself to hope, when all along I knew I shouldn't have.

I felt betrayed by Cavanaugh and my partners. Why hadn't they told me that they were bringing someone in? Someone who had clearly been told that he was replacing a "chick that left"?

And how could Maura have kept that from me? How could she have hidden away that information? _Why_ would she do that?

What was I supposed to do? Even if I could requalify for duty, would there even be a position open for me now? I suddenly felt weak in the knees.

I looked around, looking for a way to escape. I knew I was perfectly capable of driving myself home in Maura's car, but my doctors still hadn't cleared me to do it. But what did it matter, what the doctors said at that point? Everything they'd been feeding me so far had been a complete and utter lie. I was never going back to work for the Boston Police Department. The trauma surgeon in Hartford had been correct, right from the beginning. I toyed with the idea of just driving home and making Maura find a way back on her own.

As tempting as the idea was, I didn't want to go home to Maura's house, and taking the car anywhere else was pretty much stealing it. I was angry with her for keeping the arrival of the new detective a secret from me, but I would not steal her car. My way out came when a police cruiser pulled up next to me.

"Detective Rizzoli?" The uniformed officer was clearly surprised to see me. "Is that you? Are you back on duty?"

His words were like a slap in the face.

I peered down into the open window of his cruiser. The name on his badge said "Foley". I didn't recognize him, but he clearly knew me.

"Um, no. I'm just waiting for Dr. Isles to finish up," I said vaguely.

"It's got to be at least ninety degrees out there. You want a ride home?"

"Actually, I was wondering, could you take me to my brother's place? It's not too far from here."

"Sure. Hop in," he said cheerfully, leaning across the center console and pushing the front passenger side door open for me.

I got in and gave him Tommy's address, and he pulled away, babbling on about how great it was to see me doing so well. In the ten minutes it took us to get to Tommy's apartment, Officer Foley had told me about how once, years ago, when he was just a rookie at his first murder scene, I'd taken him aside and given him pointers on keeping the scene secure and not losing the contents of his stomach. He explained he'd been a nervous rookie back then, and I'd been instrumental in helping him get over his fear of gruesome crime scenes. I had no recollection whatsoever of the conversation, and I doubted that I'd been anything but condescending toward him, but he seemed appreciative of whatever I'd done for him.

As we pulled up in front of Tommy's apartment, he smiled at me. "Good luck, Detective. It'll be great to have you back on the force."

I wanted nothing more than to rip into him and scream at him that it looked like that was never happening, but instead I just got out of the car and threw him a "thanks," over my shoulder.

I made my way up the stairs into the lobby of Tommy's apartment building and pressed the buzzer next to Tommy's mailbox. Of course I got no answer. I realized it was just after four o'clock, and Tommy probably worked until five. And since it was Friday, he was probably going out with his buddies after work.

Dejectedly, I went and sat outside on the steps to his building. I thought about calling him, but realized I'd left my cell phone in the console of Maura's car. I dropped my head into my hands and willed myself not to cry.

"Janie?" I heard quietly a few minutes later. "Hey, are you okay?"

I looked up to see Tommy holding TJ in one arm and a sack of groceries in the other.

"Whatcha doin' here, Jane?" he asked softly. He put TJ down and sat on the step next to me.

"They replaced me in the homicide unit. Last week. I just found out today," I said flatly.

"Oh Jane, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I thought they were waiting for you to come back," he murmured quietly.

"Maura, Frost, Korsak, Cavenaugh, and Frankie, all kept it from me," I responded angrily.

"Maybe they didn't know either?" Tommy suggested, trying to be helpful. "I mean, I don't think they would keep that from you," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "It just doesn't seem like them."

TJ started to fidget, reaching out to pick up a stick on the step below us. "Come on, I need to get TJ inside and start making his dinner. You want to stay for dinner?" Tommy asked.

"I'm not hungry. But I can't go home. I can't even look at Maura right now."

"You're welcome to stay as long as you want, Janie. But don't hold this against Maura. You know she can't lie to you. I'm sure she would have told you if she knew something was going on," Tommy said strongly. "You know she wouldn't do that," he repeated.

"She can't lie, Tommy. But she _can_ withhold information. She did that once before, about you when you got caught up in that bank robbery thing," I pointed out.

I kept vacillating between outright anger, betrayal, and utter sadness. I couldn't pick a feeling and stick with it, but one thing I knew for sure was I didn't want to see anybody related to work. Not then, and probably not ever again.

"Look, just come inside and let me get TJ settled. Then we'll figure this out, okay? I'm sure there's an explanation for it all." Tommy got up and walked inside the building. I followed him in.

He opened the door to his apartment, and I collapsed onto his couch while he started making dinner for his son.

I must have dozed off, because when I woke up later, Tommy was giving TJ a bath, and I could hear him on the phone while he was washing him up.

"I don't know, Ma. She just showed up on my doorstep. She fell asleep almost as soon as she got here. Something about being replaced in the homicide unit."

I could hear TJ splashing around in the tub, and Tommy paused speaking to let TJ have his playful little outburst.

"I think she thinks Maura was keeping this from her. I haven't been able to get in touch with Maura. I don't know, Ma."

"No, she has nothing on her but the clothes on her back, as far as I can tell. No cell phone, no wallet, nothing. I don't think she planned this. I think she found out about bein' replaced and just took off," Tommy said quietly into the phone.

"Well someone's gotta let Maura know she's here. She can stay as long as she wants but someone's gotta tell Maura. Maura is probably frantic looking for her."

I didn't want to tell Tommy that Maura probably wasn't frantically looking for me. She was probably still diligently working the crime scene, unaware that I'd left. Tommy paused and listened to whatever my mother was saying, and I wondered when Tommy became the responsible adult he suddenly was. Fatherhood had been good to him, it seemed.

"She said she can't go home, Ma. And I ain't gonna force her. You call Maura and tell her Jane is here and the two of them can work it out. I have TJ so I can't go anywhere, and I really don't think Janie should be alone. She's scaring me, Ma. It's like the first day I saw her back in the hospital. She just gave up."

I wanted to scream that I hadn't 'just' given up. I had put months of grueling effort into getting better, and then I wound up getting my one piece of hope snatched out from my grip by some guy in a bad suit that didn't know how to work homicide investigations.

"Well of course I'll try to feed her!" Tommy snapped indignantly. "She fell asleep as soon as she got here. What was I supposed to do, feed her in her sleep?"

"Ma, just help me figure this out. Filling Janie up with food isn't going to solve this problem. I'm scared for her. I don't like when she's like this."

I heard him pause again to listen to whatever Ma was saying.

"Ma. Ma! Just get in touch with Maura so she doesn't panic when she can't find Jane. Tell her to call me. Or just come here. I'll wake up Jane and try to talk to her as soon as I'm done puttin' TJ to bed."

Tommy hung up and took TJ out of the tub. I rolled over so I was facing the back of the couch. I took the throw pillow I had been laying on and covered my head with it. It was the closest I could come to shriveling up and disappearing.

I stayed that way all through the bedtime story Tommy read to TJ. I tried to still my movements and regulate my breathing so he would think I was asleep when he came back out. Instead of Tommy walking back out to see me though, he stopped in the kitchen. I heard him open the refrigerator door and then close it again a moment later.

Then I heard him give himself a pep talk, and it was all I could do to not forget all my problems, sit up and tell him how adorable he was being.

"Tommy, you can do this," he said quietly, his voice just above a whisper. "Just wake her up and talk to her. She did this for you so many times before. Just do it."

He pulled in a ragged breath and then walked over to the couch. I could hear the floorboard creak behind me.

"Janie," he said.

I ignored him.

"Janie, come on. We gotta talk," he said a little more forcefully.

I continued to ignore him. He lifted the pillow up from on top of my head and said my name again.

_"Jane."_

I didn't stir. I honestly thought if I ignored him long enough, he would go away. I should have realized he was a Rizzoli, and that was never going to happen.

"Jane, I know you can hear me. Come on. We just gotta talk, that's it."

When I didn't move again, I felt him bend down over me. Suddenly there was something ice cold against the back of my neck. I shot up so fast I nearly knocked Tommy over.

"What the hell, Tommy!"

"Shh! You're gonna wake TJ!" He hissed at me. Then he handed me the bottle of non-alcoholic beer that he'd used to touch the back of my neck. "Sorry, you know I can't keep anything real here," he said, motioning to the bottle.

"That's okay. I can't have the real stuff anyway," I said, twisting the cap off. "You gonna join me?" I asked.

"Can't. Tastes too much like the real thing. Makes it too tempting, you know?" he said sadly.

"But yet you keep this stuff in the house?" I asked him.

"Yeah, for when the guys come over. They're pretty cool about it. They know why I don't drink and they respect that."

"Sounds to me like you finally found the right set of friends Tommy," I said proudly.

"Yeah, well… I got other responsibilities besides myself now," he said quietly.

"You're a good father, Tommy." It was true. He had become a great father. Better than ours had turned out, that was for sure.

He blushed and looked down.

"I'm proud of you," I said to him, watching him avoid my gaze.

"I'm proud of you too Janie," he said quietly. "Everytime life knocks you down, you fight and fight and fight until you can get back up again. I finally learned how to do that from you."

"Not this time, brother. This time, life got me good," I said quietly.

Tommy grimaced at me. "Look, I know I'm the last person in the world who should be giving advice, but you gotta believe me, Jane. You can't give up. You've come so far. You don't even know the whole story. You can't just lie down and stop living because of what you heard today."

"What am I gonna do, Tommy?" I whimpered.

"You're going to have to talk to somebody, Cavanaugh probably, and ask what the hell is going on. I don't know why they wouldn't tell you they were bringing somebody in. It's not like them. It would be too cruel. You don't know the whole story, and you can't just give up based on what happened today," he encouraged.

"I don't know what happened. I mean, right up until dinner last Sunday, Cavanaugh was still pestering me to get clearance for desk duty. Why wouldn't he say that he was going to give my position away? Why do people still feel the need to hide stuff from me?" I buried my face in my hands, too upset to even look at my brother.

"I don't know. But here's the thing, Jane. I didn't know this was happening. And if I didn't know, that meant Ma didn't know, which meant that Cavanaugh probably didn't know because he would have told her. And you know Ma can't keep her mouth shut. She would have told me, or Frankie, or Maura. And if any of us knew, we would have told you. You got every right to be mad, but don't be mad at Maura because I really don't think she knew."

"Tommy, she parked a block and a half away from the crime scene after she spent fifteen minutes trying to talk me out of riding there with her. I think she knew more than she was letting on," I argued.

Tommy shook his head. "I don't believe it. I don't think that Maura would do anything to risk losing you again. You weren't here, Janie. You didn't see what she was like after you left. I saw her. And you know what? She reminded me of what you wound up lookin' like the first time I saw you awake in Hartford. She gave up. She had curled up and was just waitin' to die. So I don't think she would risk goin' through all of that again."

Tommy had a point, and I really wanted to give Maura the benefit of the doubt, but something still didn't sit right with me. I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how any of this could happen.

"You should call Maura," Tommy said, handing me his phone. "Just call her and tell her you're here. You don't have to go home. But don't scare her, Jane. Don't make her look for you."

I pushed his phone back at him gently, shaking my head.

"C'mon Janie," Tommy chastised. "If you don't call her, I'm gonna hafta. I can't do that to her, and I don't know how you can."

"How could she keep this from me?!" I yelled.

"Daddy!" TJ yelled from the bedroom. "Daaa-dyyy!"

"Shit Jane," Tommy said as he stood up. "I have to go put him back to bed, but this conversation is not over." He stood up and walked back over to TJ's bedroom, and I laid back down on the couch.

I heard Tommy calming TJ and eventually TJ fell back to sleep. Tommy stepped out of TJ's bedroom and into his own, closing the door behind him.

"Maura, this is Tommy Rizzoli. I'm just lettin' you know Jane is here. She's really upset. When you get this message, please call me back. Or please come over and talk to Janie. Thanks."

_That little shit, _I thought. How could he? How _dare_ he?

Tommy walked back out into the livingroom and I ripped into him.

"Whose side are you on, Tommy?" I growled.

"Nobody's. Because there's no side to pick, Jane. Maura deserves a chance to come over here and talk to you, and you need to hear her out. And if you don't have the balls to let her know where you are and to give her that chance, then I'm doin' it for you. You're an idiot if you're gonna throw away everything you have with her over somethin' you don't fully understand."

"Oh look at you! All high and mighty!" I yelled.

"I swear to god, Jane if you wake up my son again you're gonna hafta leave. One day, when your head isn't so far up your ass, you'll thank me for this. _Don't throw away what you have with Maura_," he hissed at me, before he stormed back into his bedroom, careful not to slam the door.

I flounced back onto the couch and covered my head with the throw pillow again.

I don't know how much later it was, it could have been minutes or it could have been hours, but there was a soft knock on the apartment door. I ignored it.

A few moments later the knock came again, a little more forcefully.

"Jane?" Maura called out. "Jane are you in there?"

I could hear the concern in her voice, and I wondered if it was as fake as the hope she and my doctors had been feeding me about going back to work.

A third knock, harder yet. Hard enough for Tommy to hear it in his bedroom and come out to open the door. I could feel his glare through the throw pillow I had over my face as he crossed the living room to open the door to his apartment.

"Hi Tommy, is Jane-" Maura stopped speaking and I could hear her heels clack across Tommy's uncarpeted floors.

"Jane? Jane what happened?" Maura asked, pulling the throw pillow off of my head and placing a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged her off violently.

"Jane?" Maura asked, the shock and disbelief evident in her voice. "What's going on?"

I just lay there in silence.

"Jane, you need to talk to Maura," Tommy said forcefully from somewhere behind Maura.

I didn't move.

"I don't understand, what happened? What's going on?" Maura was starting to sound increasingly agitated.

I couldn't tell if Maura was speaking to me or to Tommy, but when I didn't answer, Tommy did.

"She showed up here this afternoon, said she met some detective that had replaced her in the homicide unit while she was waitin' for you at the crime scene."

"Okay…" Maura said, processing what Tommy was telling her. "Then why is she angry with me?"

"She thinks you knew about it and didn't tell her, Maura," he said quietly.

"Oh, Jane, there's a simple explanation-"

I sat up and cut her off. "So you knew? You knew that they'd brought another detective in?"

"Well, yes, but-" Maura stammered, still unsure of why I was so angry.

"But nothing," I spat. "You knew that they brought someone in to replace me and you said _nothing_ to me about it? You just kept it from me?"

"Jane, keep your voice down," Tommy warned.

"Fuck you, Tommy."

"Daddy?" TJ called from his room.

"Dammit, Jane!" Tommy growled as he marched back to TJ's bedroom again.

I glared over at Maura, who glared back at me in return.

"Well done, Jane," she said coldly.

"Maybe that's what I should be saying to you, Maura. Well done on keeping yet another secret from me," I said, my voice so low Maura had to lean in to hear it.

"I wasn't keeping anything from you, Jane!" Maura cried.

"Then why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me they brought in another detective?" I demanded.

"You're overreacting-" Maura started and I cut her off.

"And you're avoiding the question. You know what? I don't even want to hear your excuses. You can leave."

"I'm not leaving without you," Maura said sternly. "I am not leaving without you and you are going to listen to me."

"I am not going anywhere with you, and you can take your excuses home with you," I said, getting up and stomping into the bathroom, where I slammed the door behind me. I could hear TJ start to cry, and if I wasn't mistaken, I could hear Maura start to cry too.

I sank down to the floor, my knees pulled tight against my chest, and I finally let myself cry too.

* * *

**A/N 2:** Also, we are now officially in the home stretch. Just 9 more chapters after tonight's update, including the epilogue!


	49. Chapter 49

"It's been three days, Janie. Three days."

I ignored Tommy the same way I had been ignoring him for the three days he'd been speaking about and curled up tighter on the couch, facing the back so I didn't have to look at him. During that time Lydia had come to pick up TJ, Ma had come by to scream at me, Frankie had come by to plead with me, and Maura had stopped calling Tommy's phone.

"Could you at least get up and take a shower?" he asked, and I continued to ignore him.

"Or eat something, please?" I still didn't move.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten. Maybe it had been lunch on Friday. I no longer cared. I'd gotten delightfully weak, and it made it much easier for me to slip in and out of sleep. At least when I was asleep, I wasn't thinking.

"Look, I gotta go to work. If I don't go to work, I'm not going to make my rent. I don't make my rent, I lose my apartment. I lose my apartment, I lose joint custody of TJ. Do you understand where I'm going with this?" he asked me finally.

"Just go, Tommy," I rasped out from the couch, where, apparently, I'd taken up permanent residence.

"You're not gonna…" Tommy trailed off.

"I'm not going to what, Tommy?" I asked, my voice muffled by the back of the couch.

"Um… You're not gonna do anythin' stupid, are you? I mean, you're not gonna hurt yourself, right?" he asked quietly.

"No," I said. Even to my own ears I didn't sound too convincing, but I really had no plans to do anything other than try and make myself part of Tommy's living room decor.

"You're scaring me Janie," Tommy said quietly. "You can stay here as long as you want, but you gotta do something. Get up. Eat. Shower and change. You fuckin' stink."

I uncurled long enough to hold my middle finger up to him, and then curled back up into the fetal position. Tommy sighed.

"Look, if you do anything, do you think you could maybe shower and change today? I left a pair of my sweats and a t-shirt for you. Just throw your clothes in the washer. Nobody's gonna be here to bother you while I'm gone."

"I doubt it," I mumbled.

"Dammit, Janie! Enough of this!" I heard Tommy yell from behind me, and then stomp up to the couch. "I gave you the chance to do this yourself," he muttered, before he grabbed me and carried me, kicking and screaming, into the bathroom. I was so weak from not eating or drinking at that point that I couldn't fight him off.

He then dropped me, unceremoniously, into the bathtub he'd filled before he'd come over to talk to me. I screamed in pain when my hip and back slammed into the side and bottom of the tub as I landed. Water sloshed over the sides of the tub and instantly soaked the bathroom rug.

"You can wash that rug when you wash your clothes," Tommy said as he turned to leave. "And make sure you clean up your mess. I got somebody coming over tonight."

And with that, he walked out of the bathroom and out of the apartment to go to work.

I think it took me a solid five minutes to get my head together enough to get out of the tub and take my sopping clothes off. My head was spinning and my back screamed in pain from the way I'd landed in the tub. At one point I wound up on my hands and knees on the wet bathroom rug, so dizzy I didn't know if I was going to be able to get up and get back into the tub. I wasn't even sure if it was a good idea at that point. Finally the dizziness passed enough for me to get back in, and I made quick business of washing up. I dunked my head under the water to wet my hair, and used the cheap, store-brand shampoo Tommy had to wash it. He didn't even have conditioner. My hair would be a frizzy mess, but at least it wouldn't be greasy anymore. Not like any of that even mattered.

I stepped out of the tub and wrapped the towel around me that Tommy had left. I looked around his bathroom for something to use to brush my teeth, but all that was there were his toothbrush and TJ's. Instead I just grabbed some mouthwash and rinsed out my mouth. It wasn't really enough, but it was better than nothing.

I bent over to pick up my clothes and my head swam.

Food. I needed food.

I left the wet clothes and the wet rug on the wet floor and walked out into the kitchen still wrapped in the towel.

There was a sandwich on a plate waiting on the counter, and a note from Tommy:

_EAT._

The note was in his usual sloppy scrawl, all capital letters and underlined. I picked up the sandwich and looked at it. Peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. My stomach growled, and I took a huge bite. I stood there in nothing but a towel, dripping on Tommy's kitchen floor, and inhaled the sandwich. And when it was done, I found an unexpired half gallon of milk in Tommy's fridge and drank a tall glass.

Feeling better than I had in days, I made a second sandwich and also stood there to eat it. I drank down another entire glass of milk, and then made a third sandwich.

I sat down on the floor of Tommy's kitchen, naked except for the towel, pulled my knees up to my chest, and leaned back against his cabinets. I ate the third peanut butter and fluff sandwich more slowly, feeling far fuller than I had been minutes earlier. I leaned my head back so it rested against the cabinets, and wondered, not for the first time since I'd arrived by Tommy, what the hell I was going to do with my life. I couldn't spend it on Tommy's floor, I realized.

I stood up, cleaned up the kitchen and found the sweatpants and t-shirt Tommy had left out for me. The sweatpants were too short, but they'd have to do. I realized that I didn't have a change of underwear with me, so I just wore the sweatpants without any, and I also went braless.

_If you're going to drop me fully clothed into the bathtub, you're going to have to deal with me walking around in your sweatpants commando, little brother._

I walked back into the bathroom, picked up my dirty clothes and the wet rug, and then used my towel to dry off the bathroom floor. Then I threw everything into the washing machine and turned it on.

Figuring I'd done enough for the day, I curled back up on the couch and promptly went back to sleep.

I woke up just once, when the buzzer on the washing machine went off. I got up, used the bathroom, tossed the clothes into the dryer, and went back to sleep.

Hours later I heard the front door open and Tommy speaking to someone.

"Yeah, like I said, she's not really herself. I don't know what to do. Maybe you can explain everything to her. She won't listen to anyone else."

I heard two sets of footsteps walk up next to the couch.

"At least she bathed," Tommy remarked. "I'll leave you guys, okay? I'll just… I'll go wait outside."

"Okay."

_Oh god,_ I thought. It was Cavanaugh.

"Rizzoli," he said from behind me.

I tried to curl up tighter on myself, in an effort to just disappear.

"Rizzoli," he said a bit louder.

"Please, leave me alone," I rasped.

"Is that how you talk to your lieutenant? I expect you to turn around and face me, and address me as you would any superior."

"You're not my lieutenant," I mumbled.

I heard Cavanaugh settle on Tommy's coffee table, the cheap wood creaking slightly as he sat down across from my back.

"Yeah, I am, Jane," he said quietly. "I never stopped."

I rolled over to look at him, but didn't sit up. "Look, I know you're dating my mother and you make her happy, but you don't have to do this whole dad thing with me, okay?"

"I'm not," he shrugged. "I'm here in a purely professional capacity. So could you sit up? And listen to me?"

I rolled my eyes and sat up.

"I didn't plan on you meeting Klatsky like that," he started slowly. When I started to protest, he raised a hand, silencing me. "He told you he was brought in to replace some woman, right? Is that what set this whole episode off?"

"Episode?" I growled.

"Well, what would you prefer to call it?" Cavanaugh asked.

"Whatever. You could have told me. One of you could have told me. I've been working so hard to come back and work for you, and one of you could have let me know that wasn't possible anymore." I was fighting off tears, ashamed that I was about to cry in front of Cavanaugh.

"It's _not _impossible," Cavanaugh barked back. "Klatsky _was_ brought in to replace a woman that left. He was brought in to replace Detective Cooper. Shortly after you left for New York, we brought her back into Homicide to work with Detective Crowe. That was a huge mistake. He treated her like garbage and she wound up filing a sexual harassment suit against him. She took a position up in New Hampshire with another department. So I brought Klatsky in to replace her. To replace _Riley_. _Not you_. Your partners are still waiting for you to come back, Rizzoli."

I gaped at him.

"Now, I was going to come over and talk to you about this on Sunday at dinner, but you were too busy playing possum over here for us to even have dinner yesterday."

He shifted slightly on the coffee table and looked down at his hands for a moment.

"I really thought you were going to go to New York, hate it there, and then ask to come back. I never imagined you'd spend six months there," he said quietly. "Janie, I never imagined you'd get hurt coming back to testify for us, and I want you to know that I am so sorry for what happened to you. I feel terrible. I feel so guilty for making you come back on that day. I know how much your work meant to you, and I can't imagine what you're going through right now."

"You couldn't know," I whispered. "No one could have known what would happen."

He paused, looking thoughtful. "I worked out that deal with your lieutenant in New York for you to be able to come back and testify when we needed you, because it gave me a way to keep you on our books. Not on our payroll, mind you, but on our books."

I cocked my head at him, listening intently now.

"Thing is, you're still on our books, Rizzoli. I had you placed on secondment leave instead of having you formally terminated so you could come back and testify for us when we needed you. In the eyes of the BPD, you're still one of ours. But here's my problem. For the last several months, I've taken a lot of guff from the mayor to staff up. I'm running my staff ragged, and we have a budget for four new detectives. I brought Klatsky in to get the mayor off my back, but I've got to get you back at your desk too, even if it's just on desk duty."

"Oh," I said, so shocked I couldn't say anything more. In the eyes of the BPD, I still worked there. I let the realization wash over me for a moment, before I focused back on what Cavanaugh was saying.

"That's why I ask you constantly when you're coming back. I'm running out of excuses to give to the mayor." He stopped and looked at me.

"I heard you're cleared for desk duty a couple of days a week. But emotionally, I'm not sure if you're ready to take that step," he said quietly.

"I'm ready," I rasped, still in utter disbelief.

Cavanaugh shook his head, then fished something out of his pocket. He placed it on the table next to where he was sitting, but pushed it forward toward me. It was my badge. My original gold badge, V-825 proudly emblazoned under my name.

"I'm not so sure. I'm hoping that, like so many times before this, you'll prove me wrong. This whole overreacting thing though? You really need to work on it."

He gave me a weak smile and I grinned back at him.

"You start on Thursday morning, eight o'clock, sharp. You'll work with Frost and Korsak on paperwork. You're gonna hate it, but I need a body, and you need to get out of this funk you've been in. You're goddamn Jane Rizzoli."

"Really?" I asked, still unsure of everything.

"Really. Paperwork. That's it. No interrogations. No field work. No service weapon. Two days a week, four hours a day, until the doctors and the shrinks clear you for more. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

I picked up my badge and fingered it, running my thumb over my name.

"You saved this?" I asked him, holding the badge back out to him.

"Of course. You don't just throw away the badge of your most decorated detective. Of course I held on to it," he said sharply, staring at me like I'd suddenly grown a second head.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

"Come on. I've got to get back to BRIC, and you have reactivation paperwork to fill out. Apparently it takes more paperwork than an Act of Congress to come off of secondment leave and reactivate for limited desk duty." He smiled at me, then suddenly frowned. "Oh, and your girlfriend hasn't left the morgue in days. So when you're done with your paperwork, you can go down there and apologize to her, and then try to convince her to go home."

I threw on my sneakers and followed Cavanaugh out of the apartment. Tommy was waiting on the front steps.

"Uh, sir?"

He read my mind. "Go ahead. I'm parked over there. Don't take too long." He gave Tommy a tight smile and walked over to his car.

I turned to face Tommy.

"You're really an ass sometimes, you know," Tommy said matter-of-factly, smiling at me. I hugged him.

"Most of the time, actually. I don't know how to thank you," I whispered as I hugged him.

"Remember all those times you let me sober up on your couch? Put up with the drunken outbursts and let me sleep off my hangovers at your place so Ma and Pop wouldn't see?"

"Yeah." Those had been horrible times.

"I was just returning the favor," he said with a grin.

"You're a good guy, Tommy. I'm proud of who you've become."

He ducked his head. "Yeah, well. Took me long enough, but my big sister was a great example to learn from."

It was my turn to blush.

"I'll bring your clothes over on Sunday when I come by for dinner," he said by way of changing the subject.

"Yeah, thanks. Um, I'll wash these and give them back to you when I see you."

"You got it," he said, and turned to walk back inside.

"Tommy?" I asked suddenly.

"Yeah, Janie?"

"Have any expert advice on what I should say to Maura when I see her?" I asked.

"Yeah, the words 'I'm sorry', over and over and over again," he said with a grin and walked back inside.

* * *

**A/N:** Extra special thanks to Charlie, who not only got this week's edits done super early, but also put up with what is becoming an ever-increasing problem with Google Docs not saving comments. Seriously, she redid the edits on this chapter and the next one more than once because Google refused to save them. So, this week, she gets a standing ovation from me, in addition to my never-ending gratitude.


	50. Chapter 50

The ride back over to the precinct was quiet, but not tense. I spent most of it staring at my badge, back in my hands. I knew it was largely symbolic, that until I physically requalified for full duty, that badge held very little weight.

It was still my badge though, and I hadn't been replaced.

Cavanaugh had started telling me that I was still going to have to sign in whenever I went to the precinct, and anything beyond the precinct's public areas and BRIC were going to be off limits to me, unless I was brought there by someone else. My duty was so limited that I wasn't even allowed to watch autopsies. I started to protest, and he held a hand up.

"Let's not screw this up, Rizzoli. Your doctors have cleared you for four hours of paperwork, two days a week. Nothing else. You'll ride in with the Doc in the mornings and then if your partners are around, they'll bring you home at lunch. If not, I'll get a uniform to do it. Don't argue with me. I can't have you having some kind of setback that keeps you from your physical qualifications. There's only so long I can keep you on desk duty before I either have to put you on permanent disability or bring you back on full time."

I realized that there was a good chance that I could still be replaced. Cavanaugh was doing me a huge favor, but I still had a lot of therapy to get through.

"How long?" I asked him as we pulled into the precinct's parking garage.

"How long what?" he asked me, confused.

"How long do I have to requalify for duty before you put me out to pasture?" I asked quietly.

"I'd like to tell you as long as you need, Rizzoli. But we both know that's not possible," Cavanaugh said just as quietly.

"So, how long?" I repeated.

"Six months, more or less. Whenever the current academy class goes for their initial qualifications for duty, the department will probably ask you to requalify then."

"Oh," I whispered. I'd come so far, but I really didn't know if I'd be ready in six months.

"Don't worry about that now. Just come up to my office and fill out your paperwork."

I nodded, and followed him out of the car and into the elevator into the building. We bypassed the main entrance by taking the garage elevator, which was good because I didn't need to be walking around the main entrance braless and in my brother's too-short sweatpants.

Because it was so late in the day, the bullpen was pretty much empty except for a few uniforms coming and going to file reports. Frost and Korsak were not at their desks. Neither was Crowe or Klatsky. My desk remained empty. I went to go sit down at it, but Cavanaugh stopped me.

"No, in my office. You'll do your reactivation paperwork in there while I work on some things. Thursday you can have your desk back."

I shrugged and followed him in. I sat down across his desk from him and started the pile of paperwork that was waiting for me. At one point I had to call the rehab to get paperwork from Drs. Grossberg and Gilfried faxed over, and Cavanaugh got up to go collect it before prying eyes could have a look at it.

I had been in Cavanaugh's office for nearly an hour when the last of the paperwork was almost filled out.

"I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere," Cavanaugh said as he stood up.

"I will not pass go. I will not collect two hundred dollars," I sassed back as a response.

"Smartass," Cavanaugh laughed as he walked out.

I was just signing my name on what felt like my five hundredth form when the door to Cavanaugh's office opened. Cavanaugh was back, and Maura was behind him. He pulled the chair out next to me, and motioned for her to sit down.

"Make yourself at home, Doc. Jane, leave the paperwork on my desk when you're done. I'll see you at eight sharp on Thursday. Don't be late." He walked out, closing the door quietly behind him.

I hadn't even thought to acknowledge Cavanaugh because I was too busy looking over Maura. She looked as terrible as I did. She had circles under her eyes, her hair was flat and unstyled, and she wore no makeup. Her dress was even wrinkled. It was clear she had been crying. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, and her nose had a telltale redness on the tip too.

She sat down heavily in the chair across from me and looked me over too. I scrambled to think of something to say to her, but she opened her mouth first.

"What are you wearing?" she asked, horrified.

"Tommy's clothes," I responded, looking down at myself.

"Are you not wearing a bra? And those pants are too short. You look like you're expecting a flood." She actually laughed. It was one of those laughs people let out when they're so stressed they will laugh at anything just for a moment of relief.

I looked down and laughed with her for a split second, then sobered up quickly. I looked as absurd as I felt.

"I'm sorry, Maura."

She stopped laughing and looked at me, but didn't respond. She looked like she was ready to cry again.

"I'm sorry for the way I reacted to finding out about Klatsky, and for not giving you the benefit of the doubt. I'm sorry for not listening to you when you came over to explain."

She sighed. She looked every bit as miserable as I'd felt all weekend long.

"Let's go home, Jane."

"That's it?" I asked, shocked.

"No, I'm just too tired to cry anymore, and I don't want to cry here again," she said flatly, and stood up. "I'd rather work this out at home. Let's go."

I felt encouraged that she at least wanted to try and work it out. I still had no idea how I was going to make things right again though.

I stood up and followed her out, back into the parking garage and into her Mercedes. She drove us home, and a stony silence loomed between us. I could feel a multitude of emotions coming off of Maura. She was angry. She was upset. And she was relieved that I'd come back. She didn't have to open her mouth to tell me any of those things. Her body language spoke volumes for her.

I figured the best thing for me to do would just start out by apologizing to her. Repeatedly, if necessary, the way Tommy had suggested. I wasn't above groveling, if it came down to that.

Everytime I tried to apologize to her though, she held up a hand and said, "Let's just get home." I gave up trying after the third attempt, and figured it would be better to let Maura take the lead.

We pulled into the garage and Maura shut off the car, stepping out and walking into the house silently, her head hung low and her shoulders tensed. I followed a few steps behind her. Ma was in the kitchen, feeding the dog and the tortoises. She looked up and saw I was home and narrowed her eyes. She didn't greet either one of us, though the daggers she was shooting were aimed firmly at me. I took a deep breath.

"Ma, could Maura and I have a little privacy please? We need to talk," I said gently.

"You rode home with her and didn't talk?" Ma snapped.

"We need to talk _more_," I snapped back, not bothering to tell my mother that Maura had rebuffed my every effort to speak to her in the car.

Ma just looked to Maura, who nodded, and then left quietly out the back door. Maura waited until she was gone to turn to me and address me.

"I need to change out of these clothes," Maura said as she headed for the stairs. She looked back over her shoulder at me and said "And maybe you could put on something a little less ridiculous too."

I followed her up the stairs to the bedroom, and took a pair of pajamas and some underclothes out of the bureau. I turned and headed toward the door, figuring it would be best if I left Maura to get changed without me.

"Where are you going now?" she snapped as I headed toward the guestroom.

"I was going to the guestroom. I didn't think you'd want me in here," I said simply.

"This is where you belong, Jane. _Here._ With _me_. This is our bedroom, we sleep in here _together_." She looked furious.

"Okay," I said quietly, afraid of further setting her off. "I'm sorry."

Maura huffed and then turned to start fishing through her drawers for something to wear. I turned my back to her, taking off the shirt Tommy had lent to me and pulling the pajama shirt over my head. I'd gotten my arms and head through the holes and was just pulling the shirt down over my torso when I heard Maura gasp behind me.

"What happened to you?"

I covered up and turned toward her, confused. "I thought I'd been replaced at work and I got upset and-"

"No, Jane, your back!"

I turned my back toward the mirror and looked over my shoulder, lifting the back of the shirt up as much as I could. Sure enough, there was a massive black and blue on my lower back, and it looked like it was spreading toward my hip. Everywhere my body had come into contact with the bathtub when I'd been dropped into it was bruised. No wonder it all hurt so badly.

"What did you do? Did you fall?" Maura had stepped toward me and gingerly placed a hand on my bruise. I gasped more from the contact than from the pain her touch caused. In that moment most of her anger had dissipated into concern, and it made me feel even guiltier for the way I'd treated her than I already felt before.

"No, I didn't fall," I replied.

"Well, what happened? You need x-rays," Maura decided.

"I don't need x-rays. It's just a bruise. I can ask Dr. Grossberg to look at it when I go back to therapy tomorrow."

Maura apparently decided it wasn't worth arguing over. Not when we had an even bigger issue to get through.

I finished letting the shirt drop over my torso and reached over to get my pajama bottoms. I peeled off the pants I was wearing and blushed when Maura realized I wasn't wearing any underwear.

"Where are your underwear?"

"In Tommy's dryer. He picked me up off the couch this morning and dropped me fully clothed into the bathtub. I was struggling with him and hit my back and hip on the tub when I landed. My clothes were wet and I'd been wearing them for three days, so I tossed them into his washer when I got out of the bath." I put on a pair of panties and my pajama bottoms as I was explaining, avoiding looking at Maura, not so much out of shame for my lack of undergarments, but more out of shame from the way I'd treated her. I didn't feel like I could look her in the eye, even though I knew I should.

"_He dropped you into the tub?"_ My gaze shot back up to Maura's face at her tone. I'd never seen Maura so livid. "Does he have any idea the damage he could have done to you? Does he understand the types of injuries you're recovering from? How _fragile _you are?"

"I don't think he realized, Maura. And I had it coming. I deserved to be dropped into the tub. I treated everyone like shit. I deserve to hurt," I said, looking away from her again.

"Jane, listen to yourself. Do you even hear what you're saying?" Maura shook her head in disbelief. "Take that shirt off and go lie down. I'll go get some ice."

"I-, I could do it," I said hesitantly. I didn't want to put her out. I didn't want her doing anything for me because I didn't feel like I deserved it. I looked at the bed and then looked at her. "Would you rather me in the guestroom? Or the couch?" I asked as I got ready to head for the door.

"What? Goddamn it Jane, no! I want you _here_, with me, in _our_ bed, wrapped in _my_ arms! I want you to stop running away from me! I'm so tired of you running, and I'm so tired of missing you when you're gone. Do you have any idea what you put me through this weekend? Do you have any idea how afraid I was of losing you, over something I had no control over - _again? _And now you want to go sleep on the couch?"

"I'm sorry," I said again. "I honestly don't know what to do in this situation. I've never been in a situation like this. I don't know what the protocol is. What I do know is that I completely overreacted and acted like a giant idiot. I'm sorry."

Maura gave me a hard look. "If we're going to be together, in a relationship, you have to behave more maturely than you did on Friday. You have to learn to trust me. I really can't believe, after everything I've done for you, and everything we've been through together, that you _don't_ trust me at this point. Don't you know by now that I'd never purposely hurt you?"

Her words were like a slap in the face, and I actually flinched. What had William been, then? She watched my reaction and understanding flashed across her face. It was like she read my thoughts.

"I did not _purposely_ hurt you when I started going out with William," she said, her voice flat. "You encouraged it. I thought you were giving me your blessing."

I took a deep breath and tried to gather my thoughts. "It hurts, when people think they can't tell me about what's going on. Like I can't handle it."

"Based on your reaction on Friday, I'm not sure that you _could_ handle it. Ever since your accident, you've been hyper-defensive and completely lacking in confidence. Some of that is expected after injuries like yours. But your behavior this weekend was a giant step backward in your recovery."

She paused, frustratedly running a hand through her hair. "I wasn't keeping anything from you. I had just met Detective Klatsky at the crime scene on Friday for the first time. Even Detectives Frost and Korsak hadn't met him yet. He'd been out with Detective Crowe all week, following leads. No one aside from Cavanaugh knew he was part of the unit yet, and like Cavanaugh told you, Klatsky wasn't brought in to replace you. I was going to tell you about him as soon as I was finished working and we drove home, but you took off. If you had given me the chance, I would have let you know that he was not a replacement for you."

She stopped again, gathering her thoughts. She gave me a hard look. "But you bolted. Again. Instead of just talking to me, you ran away. And… I'm insulted. I'm insulted and hurt and angry that you would think I would keep something like that from you. That I would go so far out of my way to hurt the person I love the most in this world."

I looked down and nodded.

"More than that, I'm angry with you because you ran away, again. And I'm angry that you didn't trust me not to hurt you, and that you didn't even give me a chance to talk to you when you were so upset._ I don't deserve that, Jane_. I don't understand why you think it's okay to do that to me." Her voice started to break and I looked up at her. She was crying softly.

"I don't," I rasped, trying to keep my own tears in check. "I don't think it's okay to do that. I really don't. But my problem is I don't think, I just act in situations like that. So I don't think it's okay to hurt you. I still do it though, and I'm sorry. I know it's something I really have to work on. I'm really sorry, Maura. And if you let me, I'll show you that I've learned from what I did, and I can see how much I hurt you, and I won't do it again. I'll work on it. I'll talk to Dr. Gilfried about it, and I'll do something about it so that it never happens again. I'm so sorry."

I reached up to wipe away her tears, and thought better of it. That seemed to upset her more, and she grabbed my hand and put it on her cheek.

"Don't you get it, Jane? _I need you_. I want you here. I _want_ you to comfort me. I want to be with you. You run away sometimes without even leaving the room. I _just_ told you to stop running away, and look at what you just did with your hand. That's not okay. _I'm not okay._"

She stopped and took a deep, shuddering breath. I kept my hand cupped on her cheek, and wrapped my other arm around her waist. I hugged her to me gently. "I'm sorry, for everything." I leaned back just far enough so I could kiss away her tears, then I leaned down and kissed her lips. "I'm sorry, Maura."

"I need you," she whimpered against my lips. "I need you, Jane." I realized that in that moment, she needed me more than just emotionally. I pushed her down gently, and she laid back on the bed. I got up on the bed above her, and she did not push me away.

"_I need you, Jane," _she repeated again, more urgently.

I had never heard such need in Maura's voice before that time. In the months since we had gotten together she had often unabashedly expressed her needs and wants, but never like that.

"I'm here," I said as I lay on top of her and kissed her. "I'm here and I'm sorry, and I love you, Maura. I love you so much."

I kissed down her jaw to the nape of her neck and reached behind her to unzip her dress. She sat up slightly to let me pull down her zipper and push her dress off of her shoulders. I kissed my way down her body, sliding the dress down and off. I pushed it aside and the kissed my way back up her legs, to her thighs, where I began removing her panties.

Once her panties were off I settled between her thighs, kissing and licking her center.

"Please, Jane," she moaned as I made long strokes through her folds. She wasn't all that wet at first, but the longer I teased her, the wetter she became.

Maura and I had been together for six months at that point, and I had learned quickly that there was nothing better, nothing more erotic than going down on her. Maura was her most expressive and came hardest when it was my tongue on her center. There had been times in the past when feeling her shuddering climax had nearly sent me over the edge without even being touched.

That night though, I was more concerned with Maura. As my tongue lapped at her, Maura began moaning. Once I knew I had her worked up and close to orgasm, I took my time, making sure that I dragged out her pleasure for as long as I could.

"Jane, oh Jane," she moaned as I made lazy figure eights with my tongue. I glanced up and watched her throw her head back on the pillow, eyes closed in complete ecstasy.

"Oh please, oh, right there," she cried and tangled her fingers into my short hair.

Over and over I brought her to the edge and then gently brought her back down right before she tipped over. The longer I pleasured her, the wetter she became. I was so turned on by the sight and the smell and the taste of her. I desperately wanted my own release, but instead finally brought Maura to hers. She yanked my head tightly as she came, my name on her lips as the waves of pleasure crashed over her.

She lay there limply afterward, eventually letting go of the vice grip she'd had on my hair. I kissed my way back up her body, making my way to her lips, where she tasted herself on my tongue and she moaned in delight. I could tell just by her reaction to that kiss that she was still turned on, still ready for more.

I reached down between her legs as I kissed her. She was still slick, and my fingers slipped inside of her with little resistance. She gasped at the intrusion, and slid a hand inside the waistband of my pajama bottoms to reciprocate.

"Nnhnn," I mumbled as I pushed against her. "This is all for you."

I kissed her neck again as I established a hard, slow rhythm against her. "I'm here, Maura. I'm sorry. I love you."

She wrapped one arm around my neck and the other around my waist, pulling me harder inside of her with each thrust. I buried my face in her neck and whispered to her. My arm started to burn from the effort it took to continue pushing inside of her, but she was so close again, there was no way I would stop.

I felt her walls start to constrict around my fingers and bent them slightly, thrusting harder and faster against her.

"You are so beautiful, Maura." I whispered to her. "You are so beautiful and I love you so much. Do you know how much I love you? What I would do for you, just to keep you safe or make you happy?"

"Oh Jane," she whispered, and started to shudder.

"I love you, Maura. I'm so sorry for what I thought and what I did. Forgive me, please. Please forgive me."

She opened her eyes and kissed me hard, and in that kiss I knew I'd been forgiven. There was still plenty for us to work out and talk about, but she'd accepted my apologies.

I felt her orgasm start the second before she did, and as she broke our kiss, I whispered to her, "Come for me."

I muffled her cries by kissing her, and for the second time that night she came hard. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight as she slowly regained the ability to think, speak and move.

"I love you," she whispered to me finally. "I love you, and I know that you love me too. I hope you know that I would do anything to keep you safe and happy too, Jane."

"You prove that every day, Maura. And I'm going to do a better job of proving the same thing to you," I promised her as I rested on top of her. She pulled me closer to her and just hugged me. I knew everything was going to be all right.

We lay there a a few more minutes before Maura closed her eyes and fell asleep. I curled up around her and held her closely, but didn't sleep. There was too much on my mind. The way I'd treated Maura weighed heaviest on my mind, but going back to work, and my six month deadline for physical requalification also vied for my attention.

* * *

**A/N:** Next week I am going to be away on business. I leave on Sunday and come back on Thursday. Unlike the last time I was away on business, I _know_ I will be out to dinner most nights I'm at this conference, which means I won't be near a computer to post during regular posting times. I also won't have time to work on edits with Charlie that week. Because of that, I will only update **_once_** that week, on **_Saturday, September 14._** I know most of you enjoy the twice a week updates, but this is the one week in the year when I simply can't be at a computer. I hope you'll understand. Your upcoming Wednesday update should not be affected, and I'll remind you all again on Wednesday. Thank you to all of you who read this, and thank you for understanding about next week's updates. ~ Penguin


	51. Chapter 51

**A/N:** Trigger warning: extraordinarily brief mention of suicide in this chapter. And I mean brief.

* * *

At some point during the night I had finally dozed off, but I hadn't slept well. I woke up the next morning well before the alarm and could hardly move. Maura felt me shift in discomfort next to her and opened her eyes.

"What's wrong, beautiful?" she asked sleepily. I wondered if she'd just called me beautiful reflexively, because she was still half asleep, or if she had consciously gone back to using terms of endearment with me. I got my answer when she rolled over and opened her eyes. She looked relieved to wake up with me still in the bed with her. My heart melted whenever she called me beautiful, but my heart broke at the idea that she'd wake up worried I'd be gone again.

"Nothing. You should go back to sleep. It's early yet," I whispered to her, pulling her closer to me and kissing her forehead.

Maura wrapped an arm around my back and just the gentle placement of her hand there caused me to cry out involuntarily. Maura shot up, concern written all over her face.

"Jane, what is it?"

"I'm sorry. I'm just, I'm a little sore." I tried to play down just how sore I was, but truthfully I hadn't been that sore since the early months of my recovery. I had no idea how I was going to be able to do a full physical therapy that morning. I wasn't even sure I could sit up at that point.

"Oh my god, we never iced your back and your hip last night! Let me see it," Maura commanded, suddenly wide awake and worried again.

I tried to roll over, and all I could do was groan in pain. Something was really wrong. Maura got up and out of the bed, and walked around to my side. Gently she lifted the back of my shirt up, then she pulled the waistband of my pants away.

"Oh no, Jane," she whispered. "You need to be seen in an emergency room."

The bruise on my back and hip had spread overnight and had turned a bluish green color. It was horribly tender to the touch, and swollen around my hip. I didn't think I was going to be able to stand up, much less make it downstairs and into Maura's car to go to an emergency room.

"It's just a black and blue, Maura." I said it as much for myself as I did for her. I didn't want to think of what would happen to my work prospects if I was having some kind of a setback.

"It's not, Jane. Contusions like this can mean many things, most of them concerning. There's swelling around the area of your lumbar fusion and on your hip. Your hip hardware may be out of place, or your vertebrae may be fractured again. I think it would be better if we called an ambulance and had them put you on a board. You may have a spinal injury."

"What? No Maura. No. It's not that bad. Look, I can get up just fine." I literally rolled myself off the bed toward her, and tried to stand up, but the pain brought me to my knees in front of her, gasping.

"Stop, Jane! Stop. You need to stay immobile!" Maura yelled nervously.

I stood up on shaky legs. "I don't have a spinal injury," I tried to reason with her. "If I did, wouldn't I have been this bad last night? Let's go to the rehab and have them x-ray me there. They have all my medical records. The ER isn't going to be able to do much for me."

Maura was pale and clearly scared. "Jane, I don't think-"

I interrupted her gently. "Please, Maura. Dr. Grossberg can assess me better than they can at the ER. I'm sure it's just a bruise."

Maura shook her head, but grabbed her cell phone to call her office. She put Dr. Pike on call for the day, something I knew both Frost and Korsak would not enjoy, and then left Susie Chang a message with further instructions. For all intents and purposes, Maura had just taken a personal day, and I knew how much she hated to use them.

"God, Maur, I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I could ask Ma to take me to the rehab to get checked out."

Maura shook her head. "I'd prefer to take you. I want to make sure they thoroughly examine you. I'd prefer to take you to an emergency room, but I can tell you're opposed to the idea."

Maura pulled some clothes out of her bureau and went into the bathroom to take a quick shower. I followed her in slowly, and brushed my teeth. When she got out of the shower, I got in, and had to keep myself from crying out when the hot water hit my bruises. What if I'd caused a setback? What if I had a real, serious injury? It would be easy to blame Tommy for dropping me in the tub, but in reality it had been my own immature behavior that had caused the problem. I had to fight off tears as I showered.

By the time I got out of the shower, Maura had gotten dressed and was waiting for me. She helped me into my clothes, then down the stairs. The hot shower had helped to loosen me up a bit, and I didn't feel quite as miserable as I had when I woke up.

Maura walked up with me to the fifth floor, where Derrick was waiting for me. Quietly I explained to him the problem, and he looked both concerned and disappointed when I told him I didn't think I could do therapy that day. He agreed, and walked over to his office to call Dr. Grossberg.

"She says go on down to see her," Derrick said when he returned. "Be careful, Detective. We still have a ways to go yet, and you can't fall behind now."

Derrick's words had never been so true. Maura pursed her lips and I nodded as we made our way down to see Dr. Grossberg.

Dr. Grossberg was absolutely livid with me, and by extension, with Tommy. She had my back and hip x-rayed, and while we were waiting for the digital films to come up in the system, she sat me down and lectured me about "horseplay" and how ridiculous it was that I'd endanger my progress when she'd just reduced my therapy schedule not four days prior.

Stupidly, I tried to argue with her, telling her that Tommy had dumped me in the tub because I'd refused to move off his couch for three days, and that I wasn't really horsing around with him. That led to questions about why I was holed up on the couch for three days, which then led to me being sent down to see Dr. Gilfried once my x-rays came back clear. On my way out, Dr. Grossberg told me I'd be off physical therapy for the rest of the week, until the bruising started to clear up and the swelling went down. I nearly punched the doorframe in anger, until I realized that not only would that be counterproductive, it would be another stupid move in front of Dr. Grossberg.

Dr. Gilfried seemed shocked to see me, and even more surprised when Maura came in with me to my impromptu session.

"Jane, I was surprised when Dr. Grossberg called me. Is everything all right?" she asked as we made our way in, and I sat down on the couch.

Maura came right in and sat down right next to me, practically on top of me. I was unprepared for Maura to stay for the session, but it appeared that she had no intention of leaving. And since part of the problem I'd had that weekend was running away from Maura and not trusting her enough with my feelings, asking her to leave seemed wrong. I looked from Maura to Dr. Gilfried and finally answered her question.

"I think everything is sort of okay right now, but I had a bad weekend and caused a lot of people, including Maura, well, especially Maura, a lot of pain."

"Tell me what happened," Dr. Gilfried said gently.

"I left here on Friday and Maura surprised me by picking me up. I was telling her about how my therapy schedules had changed and I'd been cleared to go back to work on desk duty two days a week. While I was telling her, she got a call to go to a crime scene. Since we were going to pass by the crime scene on our way home, I asked her just to take me with her. I promised I would not interfere with her work and would just stay near the car. While I was waiting, a new detective came walking up the block. He told me he was new to Boston Homicide, and he'd been called in to take the place of 'some chick that left'."

I stopped and took a deep breath, rubbing my palms on my sweatpants. I ached all over physically, but emotionally I ached even more.

"I figured that chick he replaced was me, and I got very upset that no one told me my position in homicide had been filled. I was devastated because I thought they were holding a position open for me, and then everyone I knew and trusted kept it hidden from me. I completely overreacted and had a uniform drive me over to my brother Tommy's place. I spent the next three days pretty much catatonic on his couch, except for when Maura came over and tried to explain, and I wouldn't let her get a word in edgewise."

"It took my lieutenant coming over to talk to me for me to find out that I hadn't been replaced, and that I am actually supposed to start limited desk duty on Thursday of this week. I shut everyone out this weekend, and worst of all, I never gave Maura the benefit of the doubt. I thought she was hiding something from me, which I should know she would never do, and I never even gave her a chance to explain herself."

Dr. Gilfried looked from me to Maura and then back again.

"I did apologize to Maura, but she and I haven't really talked about what I did," I added.

It dawned on me at that moment that I felt like I was sitting in confession. Dr. Gilfried was the priest and Maura, well Maura could have been God. It wasn't just the way I worshipped Maura, because I really did. It was also the fact that forgiveness had to come from Maura even though it was Dr. Gilfried that was hearing my confession.

Dr. Gilfried looked to Maura. "Are you all right, Doctor Isles?"

"Yes, I am now, for the most part. I was very upset by Jane's behavior and it was a difficult three days for me, but Jane has sincerely apologized, and I accepted her apology. I've asked her to stop running away and shutting me out when she feels there's a problem, and she agrees that it is a problem and that she will work on it."

"That does seem to be an issue, Jane," Dr. Gilfried said gently. "You ran away to New York, and this past weekend you ran away to your brother's home."

"I'm starting to understand that, yes. And I did tell Maura that I was going to work on that. And Maura told me if we're going to stay in a relationship I have to trust her more."

"Don't you trust her, Jane?" Dr. Gilfried looked puzzled.

"I do. I really do. I would trust her with my life. She's saved it enough times. So that's why I don't understand why I get scared of trusting her with my emotions. I really don't know why I didn't just ask you what was going on, Maura. I'm really sorry for that. I was completely irrational. It doesn't make up for how I reacted, and it's just an excuse, but I wasn't thinking clearly at all, and I'm really sorry. I behaved worse than a cranky toddler."

"I accept your apology again," Maura said with a gentle smile. "You apologized last night, and I think I told you then that you were forgiven. I'd rather you not continue to apologize, but instead try to avoid doing what you did ever again."

I grinned at the memory of Maura's forgiveness last night, but Dr. Gilfried interrupted my thoughts.

"It's good that you've apologized, but Maura makes a good point. How are you going to stop that from happening again in the future?"

"I'm going to have to work on thinking before I speak or act. I'm going to have to remember that Maura loves me and wouldn't hurt me. I'm going to have to remember to ask about situations I'm not sure about, and get to the bottom of things like a good detective would, instead of running from what hurts me. Mostly I have to remember how much Maura has done for me and how much she cares about me, and treat her much better than I have lately."

"These are all good things, but I think the two of you need to also work on some trust building together. What can you do together that would help build trust between you?"

I looked at Maura. I sure hoped she had some ideas because I had none. I really felt like I already trusted her, but my behavior that weekend had told me I needed to work on that. Maura looked at me and waited for me to make a suggestion. I was suddenly afraid that she would get mad when she realized I couldn't think of anything.

"How about we go on one of those team retreat things?" Maura suggested suddenly, and I exhaled in relief.

"Those retreats require a lot of physical activity, and unfortunately Jane isn't really up to that yet. But I have some ideas I think you could try," Dr. Gilfried said cheerfully.

"Okay," Maura and I said simultaneously.

"First, there's an eye contact exercise you can try. Stand up about a foot apart from one another. Don't touch each other. Maintain eye contact with one another without smiling or laughing or talking for one full minute. Then, after the minute is over, step closer and do the same exercise again. After that minute is over, step about three feet apart and do the same thing again."

"I'm not opposed to trying it, but what does that accomplish, exactly?" I asked, confused. Maura and I regularly had eyesex, I doubted I'd be able to do the exercise without cracking up or outright initiating sex.

"The change in distance between you is supposed to change the intensity of the eye contact, and the longer you hold eye contact, the more trust you build," Dr. Gilfried explained.

"Okay, it's worth a try," Maura said.

"I also want you to go to the opposite end of the spectrum. I want one of you to wear a blindfold and the other to walk through a small obstacle course in your house. Be very careful with that one though, because Jane shouldn't fall."

I looked over at Maura, but she was too busy looking at Dr. Gilfried to notice my raised eyebrow. I was definitely going to do my best to make sure I was serious during these exercises, but each one of them led me to think of some sort of sexual situation involving Maura and I. Maybe that was the end purpose anyway.

"Lastly, I want you each to tell the other a secret. Something deep and dark that you don't want shared with anyone else. Sharing your secret frees you from it, but also entrusts it into the other person, who must never use it against you and must never tell anyone else the secret."

I instantly started cataloging my secrets, trying to figure out which secret I'd tell Maura. It dawned on me that she knew most of them already. I was going to have to dig deep to find something to tell Maura. I wondered if I already knew all of her secrets already too. I tried to remember to ask her about that when we were in the car on the way home.

Dr. Gilfried finished up with us not long after giving us our assignments, and asked Maura to come back to the following week's session with me so we could talk about how it went.

Since I had no therapy for the rest of the week, and wasn't scheduled to start work until that Thursday, Maura took Tuesday and Wednesday off with me. It had been a while since the two of us had two days off together in a row, with no crime scenes for Maura to run off to. I wished I felt better, so we could go and do something, but the both of us needed a rest, and that's mainly what we wound up doing.

We were up in the bedroom on Tuesday when Maura suggested we try some of the exercises Dr. Gilfried had assigned to us. I agreed, not so much because I thought they would fix any trust issues I had, but simply because I wanted to show Maura I was willing to try to overcome any obstacles that were thrown at me, even if it was me that was throwing them at myself.

We started out about a foot apart from one another and tried to do the eye contact exercise. Maura and I were both serious when we started, but things quickly fell apart, and it wasn't even me that lost control first. We were less than fifteen seconds into our first go at it when Maura started to giggle. And the harder she tried to control herself, the more she giggled. Finally I started laughing too. After a laughing fit that left my sides sore and my bruised back aching, we both straightened up and tried again. We were just nearing the end of the one minute period when I stealthily stuck my hand out and poked Maura in the stomach. We both started laughing again, and I sank back on the bed as Maura attempted to chastise me in a serious tone. She failed miserably, and we just laughed even more. She collapsed onto the bed next to me, and we laid there with our foreheads touching.

"Maybe we should try the blindfold thing instead?" I asked Maura as she continued to laugh.

"I have to tell you," she said as she caught her breath, "I really couldn't keep my mind off of… inappropriate situations… when she told me about blindfolding you."

"Me either, but I was taking the session seriously. I swear," I said earnestly.

"I know. I was too," she said, and then poked me gently in the stomach, making me laugh again.

"Tell me your secret," I said to her as I watched her laugh.

"I honestly think you know all of my secrets," she said quietly, sobering quickly. "I mean, the love I felt for you was my biggest secret for so long, and I think you even knew about it, deep down, so it wasn't truly a secret."

"I did know, deep down. And for a long time that was my secret too. That I loved you, I mean."

"So you've no other secrets?" Maura asked, using one of her hands to cup my cheek. We were forehead to forehead on the bed, a position I wouldn't have minded spending the rest of my life in, as long as it was Maura's forehead I was pressed up against.

"Do you?" I asked her.

She grimaced.

"Tell me," I said quietly. "I won't judge you. I promise."

"A few days after I came home from the hospital, after my miscarriage, I very briefly considered suicide. I mean, it was fleeting, how quickly the idea came and went. It wasn't something I dwelled upon for a long time. It wasn't even something I dwelled upon for a few minutes. And I never gave it any further thought after I realized that's not what I wanted," she said quietly, looking down and not meeting my eyes.

"Oh Maura," I whispered, pulling her tightly against me. "I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't long after that though, that I realized I needed to get my life together and move on," she said, her voice a little stronger. "I guess it's true, what they say, that you have to hit rock bottom sometimes before you can get better."

"I'm glad you're okay," I said to her. "And I hope you're never in a situation like that again, when you feel like you can't go on anymore."

"It was just… it wasn't even a full minute's worth of contemplation," she said, trying to reassure me. "I just thought maybe it would be easier, instead of living life like the way I was. But then I realized immediately afterward that wasn't what I wanted, and that I still had my life to live, I just had to start living it again."

I kissed her softly. "I'm glad you realized that. I'm glad you're here. I love you so much."

"Tell me your secret," she said, leaning away from me just long enough to wipe her eyes.

"Well, I really don't have anything that dark that I could tell you, because you already know it all. Hoyt, the lows I sunk to when I was in New York, I already told you all of that. But I have a secret from my childhood that I could tell you. It's not deep, it's not dark, but it's still a secret. And it's horribly embarrassing."

"Okay," Maura said, smiling at me in encouragement.

"We were in church one Sunday, right after mass, and Ma and Pop were talking to another family, at the end of the pew where we had been sitting. Tommy, Frankie and I had each snuck a candy bar in with us to eat afterward. Our biggest complaints about church were that it was boring and we were always hungry for lunch as soon as we left, and Ma and Pop always felt the need to chit chat before we could actually go. Easter had been a few weeks prior to that and we each had those tiny, snack-size chocolate bars left from the holiday, so we each brought one with us in our pocket. Frankie had thought of it, and thought it was a genius idea. He was about six, I was about eight, and Tommy was just ready to turn three."

I stopped to see Maura smiling at me, the idea of a juicy Rizzoli childhood secret almost too much for her to handle.

"Well, the fact that they were in our pockets for so long made the chocolate bars all melted. And Tommy being a toddler, he dropped his candy bar as soon as he opened it, and we wouldn't let him eat it off the floor. Even at eight I knew you couldn't do that. So he started getting whiny and I knew my parents were going to hear him, so I tried to get Frankie to give Tommy his chocolate bar. And since Frankie wouldn't give it to him, I had to give him mine. Because if Tommy started crying, Ma and Pop would want to know why, and I'd end up having to take the blame for the chocolate in church even though it wasn't my idea."

"That was sweet of you, to give him yours," Maura said, kissing the tip of my nose lightly.

"Well, what I did after that wasn't sweet at all. Frankie and Tommy started gloating after that, that they'd had chocolate and I didn't. I was hungry, I was bored from being in church for so long, and I was eight. Even then I was very competitive, and also very vindictive."

"What did you do?" Maura asked, thrilled by the idea of some sort of childhood scandal.

"I can't believe I'm going to tell you this. I'm so ashamed, Maura. I was eight and should have known better."

"Just tell me. I promise not to judge you," she said seriously, repeating my words from earlier back to her.

"I stomped away to the empty confessional near the pew where we were sitting and I… oh god. I can't, Maura. I can't tell you."

"What?" Maura pressed. "Yes you can tell me. You were a little girl, Jane. I'm sure it's not something you'd do again as an adult," she reassured me.

I took a deep breath and looked up into Maura's eyes. She was so ready to hear this secret. I didn't want to disappoint her, even if I felt worse telling her this than admitting anything else to her.

"I pooped in it," I said in a mortified rush. "In the confessional. And then I called Frankie and Tommy over and showed it to them, all 'look what I found,' as if someone else had done it. And while they were over there, squealing about how gross it was, I yanked down Tommy's pants, and yelled to my parents that Frankie had told Tommy that the confessional was the bathroom, and look at what Tommy had done."

"Oh my god, Jane! That's so devious!" Maura said, but she was laughing.

"I can't believe I did that. I mean, who does that?" I said, embarrassed beyond anything I'd ever felt before.

"What did your parents say?" Maura asked.

"They were mortified too. They were on Tommy and Frankie faster than I could ever imagine, and both of them tried to deny it. It didn't help that Tommy had chocolate all over his hands from the chocolate bar he ate. I got in trouble for not watching them like I should have been, but they _really_ got in trouble. To this day, Ma still doesn't believe Frankie when he says Tommy didn't do it. And Tommy was too young to really remember it at all."

Maura continued to laugh. "You are far smarter and far more devious than I sometimes give you credit for, Jane."

I was already blushing profusely, but at that point I couldn't even begin to look her in the eyes. She lifted my chin up anyway, and once again I was facing her. "You had an amazing childhood. Don't be ashamed of it. Not even that-," she paused, trying to control her laughter, "that incident in the confessional!"

Finally I started to laugh with her too. After a moment, I stopped laughing again. "I wonder if that's what Dr. Gilfried thought I would tell you when she said to share a secret to build trust."

"I don't think that's what Dr. Gilfried had in mind," Maura said when her laughter finally subsided.

I took both of her hands in mine and clasped them close to my chest. "I don't think so either. I'm no expert, but I think Dr. Gilfried may have misdiagnosed me. I _do _trust you, Maura. Completely. My reaction last weekend was due to my own insecurities, not insecurities about you. I'm so scared, Maura. I'm scared that I'll never be able to work like I used to ever again. I'm scared of disappointing my family and I'm scared of losing you."

"Oh Jane," Maura whispered. "You're never going to lose me. Having you here these last six months has been wonderful. I want to wake up with you every morning and fall asleep with you every night for the rest of my life. That's not contingent on you going back to work. No matter what happens with work, you and I are going to stay together."

"Do you really mean that, Maur?" I asked softly.

"Of course, Jane. Of all the things in the world to be afraid of, losing me isn't one of them. We've come too far. We'll never go back to the way things were before. My life with you is perfect, and I wouldn't ever look to change it."

Maura smiled at me warmly, and I let go of one of her hands so I could cup her cheek. "Thank you. For everything you've given me, not the least of which is your love. I have to ask though, did you mean the rest of it? The rest of your life part, I mean."

"Absolutely!" Maura said brightly.

"Would you marry me? Someday? When things are less uncertain and I've found some way to contribute to our household, I mean?"

"Are you proposing?" Maura asked, grinning.

"No, when the time comes, I'm going to do it the right way. I was just wondering if that would be something you'd want. I could understand if you didn't want that, because of the way things with William turned out."

"And Garrett," Maura said and then pursed her lips. "I don't have a very good track record when it comes to that, do I?"

"That's because they weren't the right ones for you," I reassured her.

"But you are," Maura said resolutely.

"I believe that I am, yes. Because you're so right for me, and you're my everything."

She leaned in to kiss me, and as we parted, she whispered "I would marry you. If you asked me to."

"I will. Someday. I promise."

She grinned at me, and I leaned in to kiss her again. We spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon making love, Dr. Gilfried's exercises completely forgotten.

* * *

**A/N:** So, as I mentioned in the last chapter, the next update to this story will happen on _Saturday, September 14._ This is due to the fact that I'll be away on business next week (leaving on Sunday), and I simply won't have time to work on the edits and post during the normal schedule. It's an extraordinarily busy week for me (normally), and I won't be at a computer very much. I apologize for this. I know many of you look forward to the twice a week updates, and I apologize for not being able to maintain the schedule like normal. I hope you'll understand. The update schedule for the next few weeks will be:

Saturday, September 14

Wednesday, September 18

Sunday, September 22

Wednesday, September 25

and so on, until the story wraps up at chapter 58 (the epilogue).

Thank you for sticking with this story, and thank you for understanding about this one tiny blip on our otherwise very regular update radar. :)


	52. Chapter 52

**A/N:** Thanks so much for all of your patience, everyone. Although I was a bit less busy on my trip than I anticipated, the logistics of doing the edits and posting still wasn't possible. I'm glad I warned everyone ahead of time that I wouldn't be able to update, and I'm thankful to you all for being so understanding about it. The next update will be this coming Wednesday, at which point we'll return to our regular Wednesday/Sunday update schedule until the story completes.

* * *

Wednesday morning Maura and I went through some of the boxes of clothes that I had taken out of storage a few months earlier. We pulled out several pairs of my old slacks and blazers. I tried them all on, and despite how much weight I had put back on in the months since my accident, they were all woefully too big.

"Looks like we're going shopping!" Maura said gleefully.

I groaned. I knew I needed clothes to go back to work. Back before Maura and I were together, clothes shopping would be a very simple, very short process. I'd go to one store, look for what I needed, find it in my size, buy it and then leave. I had made it a point to never tell Maura when I was going clothes shopping because inevitably she'd want to come with me, something that in itself was always wonderful, but I'd end up spending far too much money on far too few clothes, and those clothes would inevitably be ruined in a foot chase or some other kind of scuffle. I always felt less guilty about ruining clothes I'd purchased myself at a department store somewhere than I did when I ruined designer clothes that I'd spent way too much money on while shopping with Maura.

Now that Maura and I were together though, shopping without her knowing would be both dishonest and next to impossible.

Shopping with Maura was never anything close to a simple process. I knew in the end I'd look fabulous and have a terrific wardrobe, but I was not looking forward to the all day process that this would entail.

"Cheer up," Maura said as she took me by the elbow and steered me out of the bedroom. "I'm going to have you turning heads and making jaws drop. Jane Rizzoli will never have looked so good."

"Maura, I want to pay for my own clothes," I said quickly. I had money from my settlement with the NYPD that had been doing nothing but collect interest since I received it, and I had months of disability payments that Maura would not let me use toward household expenses. That had become a point of contention between us, and we'd agreed to let it go until I went back to work. Now that I was going back to work, even in a severely restricted fashion, I planned to bring the subject back up again, in as gentle a manner I could manage.

"You can buy whatever you want, Jane. Just don't try to stop me when I buy you whatever I want," she said sweetly.

Maura winked at me and bounded off down the stairs in search of her purse and her car keys. I couldn't bring myself to complain because she looked so damn happy about the idea of dressing me up. The truth was, whenever Maura was genuinely happy, I was too. Even if it meant an entire day of clothes shopping.

We started out at one of Maura's favorite boutiques, at her insistence. She sat there patiently as the shop assistant came out with outfit after outfit for me to try on. It was exhausting, and it wasn't because I was only partially healed from my injuries. I would try on each outfit in front of her, and turn around so she could review it. After an hour we had three outfits put to the side for purchase, and a mountain of clothes for the assistant to put back on the racks when we left.

When the assistant left to go package up the outfits we were taking, I looked to Maura worriedly.

"I saw some of the price tags on those clothes-"

Maura raised a hand and interrupted me gently. "I'm buying those outfits. I really wanted to get you something nice for your first day back. We'll head over to one of the department stores you like after this and you can buy yourself whatever you want. But tomorrow, when you go back to work for the first time, I want you dressed in something I picked for you, so you know that I'm right there with you, all day long."

I smiled at the way she warmed my heart, but I continued to worry about the way she was still, all these months after I'd come home, spending way too much money on me.

"Maura, you have to start letting me chip in. It's not that I don't appreciate all that you do for me. I really do. But sooner or later you're going to run out of money, and it will be because of me. I'm going back to work tomorrow. I'm not going to be earning much, but you would make me feel a lot better if you let me start contributing toward things. I could buy us groceries each week. Or I could pay some of the utility bills. Anything that I could help out with would make me feel useful and a little less unequal in our finances."

Maura looked at me sweetly before she stood up and wrapped me in an embrace. "I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like you're not equal in any way." She kissed my neck softly before she stepped back and started speaking again. "You're welcome to chip in whenever and wherever you want. I think I got so used to taking care of you when you really needed it that I just never stopped. But I also want to point out that if you couldn't chip in or didn't want to, it wouldn't make me love you any less."

I kissed her softly. "Thank you. But I'm not going to be the reason you run out of money."

"Oh Jane," Maura sighed. "Don't be silly. Even at the rate I'm going, I'm never going to run out of money. I have savings and investments and a trust fund I came into at eighteen that I've barely touched. And if, for some reason, I needed more, my parents wouldn't hesitate to help me out."

I just looked at Maura with wide eyes. I was dying to know just how much of a fortune she had at her disposal, but it was none of my business. The very last thing I wanted Maura to think was that I was with her for her money. That's why it was so important to me to start contributing somehow, even if it was only in a small way.

Maura, to her credit, seemed to realize what I was thinking and feeling. She squeezed her arms around my waist before she began to speak.

"Just know this. Even without the Isles fortune, I make enough as chief medical examiner to keep us both living comfortably. Maybe not as lavishly as we are now, but we'd never be uncomfortable, okay?"

I nodded. "Still, I want to contribute. I want to help out."

"And you can." She smiled at me again, then took me by the hand. "Come on, let's go pay for the new outfits, then go to the department store so you can introduce me to all sorts of blended fabrics I've never worn before."

I laughed at her. "Maybe I'll buy _you_ an outfit. Maybe tomorrow I'll go to work dressed in what you bought for me, and you'll go in wearing something I bought for you."

Maura raised an eyebrow, but I had her exactly where I wanted her. I'd enjoy watching her try to squirm her way out of a department store outfit. Maybe shopping was going to be more fun than I thought.

We got to the department store and made our way over to the women's department. I immediately gravitated over to the clothes I was most comfortable in wearing, and easily picked up three new pairs of slacks, six new shirts, and three new blazers, in record time, and for a lot less money than the three outfits Maura had bought for me.

I caught Maura looking at a linen skirt in dark blue. There was a matching cream colored button down blouse next to it. She seemed genuinely interested in it. I walked over to her and picked her size up off the rack.

"Would you try this on, for me?" I asked her.

"Oh, I don't know…" she hesitated.

"I bet it's not nearly as itchy or scratchy or middle class as you think it is," I joked. Maura blushed but smiled at me.

"Okay, I'll try it on."

"If you like it, I bet we can find a nice pair of matching shoes to go with it over in the shoe department," I half-teased her. If she liked the outfit, I'd definitely get her matching shoes, if she wanted them.

Maura seemed encouraged by the idea, and she made her way over to the dressing room. I waited outside for her, and a few minutes later she stepped out from behind the dressing room curtain in the skirt and blouse. She looked beautiful. She could be dressed in rags and look beautiful, I knew that much, but the outfit really did suit her nicely.

"Well?" I asked her as she did a little spin.

"I like it." She smiled at me, and it wasn't one of those fake smiles Maura did for other people when she was trying to reassure them.

"Do you?" I asked anyway.

"You know I can't lie, Jane. It's really nice. The cut is perfect for me, and the fabric isn't nearly as itchy as I anticipated it would be."

I laughed. "Good. Go put your clothes back on, and we'll take it to the checkout. I'll buy you that outfit, and shoes to match too."

"Okay," Maura grinned, pleased that she was getting an outfit out of all of this too.

She came back out and we went over to the checkout counter and then over to the shoe department. I grinned secretly as I watched Maura's eyes widen. Maura's preferred boutiques didn't have quite the selection the department store had in shoes. Granted, not all of the department store shoes were designer shoes, but I watched Maura's face light up as she saw familiar designer names on the rack. I realized I may have accidentally added another few hours on to our shopping trip, but with Maura looking like a kid in a candy store, it would be worth it.

I picked out two pairs of shoes that I normally wouldn't wear. I prefered my boots, but I really couldn't wear anything with a heel. I was walking better and better every day, but putting myself into heels was just asking for trouble. I hadn't progressed that far in my gait training to wear anything with a nice heel. Instead I picked out two pairs of loafers that had just a half inch heel in black and brown. Even Maura agreed they were the most sensible things for me to wear at the time. They would match the outfits we'd gotten and were still professional enough for me to wear into BRIC.

Maura had picked out a gorgeous pair of cream colored heels to match her outfit, and tried them on. They fit her nicely.

"I'll take these," Maura said, and I took them from her up to the checkout counter while she kept the shoe associate busy running in and out with more pairs of shoes for her to try on.

Maura was so deeply engrossed in her new shoe adventure that she didn't see me wander over to the jewelry counter. I looked around for a bit, until I saw what I was looking for. There was a heart-shaped sapphire on a gold chain that would go beautifully with the outfit I had gotten for Maura. Next to it were a pair of matching sapphire earrings and a dainty heart-shaped sapphire stone set in a gold ring. All together, the jewelry cost more than I received in disability payments in two months, but it was for Maura, and I wanted to treat her. She had done so much for me, and I knew the jewelry would look great with her new outfit. The jewelry saleswoman boxed everything up for me and placed it into a gift bag. I tucked the gift bag into the larger shopping bag with our shoes, and made my way back over to Maura.

When I arrived, Maura had what looked like half of the store's shoe inventory in her size around her, and she was sorting the shoes into piles that she she planned to purchase and piles that she planned to leave behind. With each pair she picked up, she looked like she was trying to decide which of her children to keep and which to give away.

"We could always come back again another day and get the others," I said quietly, letting her know I was back and trying to take some of the sadness out of her selection process.

"I wish we had driven the Prius. There's more trunk space." Maura had the most adorable pout on.

"I didn't see it when we left. I think Ma was out and about in it."

Maura sighed, and settled on the shoes that she wanted. The sales associate looked like she had hit the jackpot as she started carrying the boxes over to the register. In the end, Maura had settled on thirteen pairs of shoes, not including the pair I had bought for her. As the saleswoman rang her up, I started thinking of creative ways to cram all of this stuff into Maura's tiny Mercedes.

We wound up getting all but two shopping bags jammed into the trunk of the car. I had to keep them on my lap as we drove home. We unloaded everything and I hid the gift bag with the jewelry in it until Maura had all her new shoes settled into the walk in closet. She walked out beaming at me, as if she'd just come out of battle victorious, and the shoes were her spoils.

"Fun day, huh?" I asked, smiling at how happy she was.

"It was. I can't believe all the news shoes I have!" Maura beamed at me. "Did you enjoy yourself?"

"I did," I said honestly. "I really enjoyed seeing you have so much fun."

I sat down on the bed and patted the spot next to me. Maura walked over and sat down.

"I'm going back to work tomorrow," I said to her slowly. "I know it's only on desk duty and only for two days a week, but nine months ago this wasn't even a possibility. I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for you, Maura."

"Jane, you are so strong, you didn't need me for any of this," Maura said bravely.

"That's not true. Without you I'd be dead and buried. You fought for me, even after I walked away from you. And even when you knew that I was going to live, you didn't stop fighting for me. You've been so generous, Maura. I can't thank you enough."

I looked up at Maura and watched a single tear make its way down her cheek. I brushed it off with my thumb. "I love you so much, Maura."

I leaned forward to kiss her softly, and as I did, I pulled the gift bag from under the pillow behind me. When we separated, I presented the bag to Maura.

"I wish it was more, but it's the best I can do. I hope you'll like it. Maybe you'll wear it with your new outfit tomorrow?"

"Jane, what is this?" The genuine surprise on Maura's face made me grin.

"Open it and see. It's just a very small token of my very big appreciation of everything you've done for me."

"You didn't have to get me anything!" Maura protested.

"I know. I wanted to. Open it, please."

Maura lifted the larger jewelry box out of the bag and opened it, gasping at the necklace and earrings that were inside. She lifted the necklace out and held it up in front of her.

"Jane," she gasped. "This is beautiful!"

"Just like you, though I think you're more beautiful," I whispered as I took the necklace from her and put it around her neck. She pulled me to her to kiss her as I started to lean back after fixing the clasp behind her.

"It matches your new outfit. I thought maybe you might want to wear it to work tomorrow?" I asked her softly when we'd stopped kissing.

"Of course," Maura said. "This is too much though, Jane. You shouldn't spend this kind of money on me."

"I've been saying that to you for months. This was the very least I could do to say thank you to you. There's something more in there," I pointed back at the bag.

Maura's eyes widened and she pulled the ring box out of the bag and opened it.

"Oh Jane, this is gorgeous!"

"I thought you'd like it. It's classy and simple and perfect, just like you," I said as I took the ring out and put it on her finger. "It's not an engagement ring, because you deserve the best engagement ring out there, and that ring isn't in some department store. But I'd like to think of this as a promise ring. You are my everything, Maura, and I promise to love, honor and cherish you, always. And someday, I'd like to ask you to marry me. Would you wear this ring in anticipation of that day?"

Maura looked at me with eyes that shined with both happiness and tears. She shook her head yes, and then finally got the word out. "Yes, yes, I would very much like that." She hiccupped over the words as her emotions got the better of her, and I kissed her again.


End file.
